


Casualties of War

by TDaL



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Blood and Gore, Canonical Character Death, Disillusioned!Steve, Emotional Manipulation, M/M, Mentions of Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unknown Character Fate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-23
Updated: 2015-05-23
Packaged: 2018-03-31 21:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 56,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3993883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TDaL/pseuds/TDaL
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first thing he thought when he got the call was that he should have known.</p><p>Now that he thought about it, a lot of it was making sense. All the pieces were coming together in a clear picture. Steve had used Tony’s willingness to help him along his way to figure out how to get away from everything. Tony had told him how to disappear and stay gone.</p><p>He should have known.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I joined yet another Reverse Big Bang and where else would I go but Steve and Tony?
> 
> The biggest thanks ever to my amazing artist [Rai-Kishi](http://rai-kishi.tumblr.com/) who sent in a prompt that I had been wanting to get my hands on for a long time. Thank you so much for taking my crazy little idea and going back and forth with me until we came up with this monster of a glorious fic! You can see that art [here](http://rai-kishi.tumblr.com/post/119653833777) BUT BE WARNED THAT IT DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS! Give Rai-Kishi all of your love because they sure as hell deserve all of it and more!
> 
> Another big thanks to my amazing Beta [Ahoyjoanna](http://ahoyjoanna.tumblr.com/) who loved and hated me throughout this entire process. She was the best cheerleader and I quite enjoyed making her rage at me!
> 
> Lastly, please do take note of the tags. 
> 
> Enjoy!

The day started out like every other day. He had his feet up on the table as he leaned back in his chair, cautiously sipping at some coffee that Dummy had handed to him earlier. It tasted alright, but for all he knew there was motor oil in it.

Brown eyes idly moved back and forth as the screens in front of him scrolled down automatically to show him the monthly reports from the R&D department. Not that there was much there. An improvement for the up and coming Stark Tablet, some propositions for other projects; it really wasn’t anything new. Plus, he would end up sinking his hands into the projects and change them entirely anyways.

Tony sighed loudly, hanging his head over the back of his chair. Boring. This was all utterly boring. He’d spent the last four months wallowing in Stark Industries. Which wasn’t a bother at all, no, but it was starting to really drag on him.

Four months ago he had been fighting alongside Rhodey to destroy Vanko’s armor drones and undermine Justin Hammer. Now he was sitting in his workshop, tinkering with the armor and setting up plans for the company. The self-sustaining tower he was currently having built in New York was going to be a big leap in the technology, but he found that he was starting to miss the thrill that came with being Iron Man.

Sure, he had been out a few times since then, but it was nothing on the scale of Vanko, or even Obie, had been.

Certainly he would be able to find some amusement somewhere. Tony brought his attention back to the screens in front of him. “Hey Jarvis, how about we have some fun seeing if anything interesting pings up on some of our more devious channels.”

“By ‘devious channels’, I would assume that you mean hacking into   
SHIELD mainframe sir?” The AI responded.

“Rightio, my good man! You know daddy best.” He took another sip of the coffee and scowled at the after taste. One would think he learned his lesson after drinking Dummy’s smoothies.

Tony took joy in the fact that he didn’t actually have to get up to get his daily fifth dose of caffeine though. It meant that he could continue on his merry way.

One of the screens to his left showed SHIELD’s eagle emblem as his AI hacked his way into the system. He took great pride in the secret entrances that he had installed into their system. One of the first things he had done when Fury signed him on as a consultant was improve all of their systems. He was pretty sure that Fury knew that he had created a way in, but he was pleased to note that the director hadn’t seemed to have pinpointed it yet.

He patted his stomach as the data starting rolling in. Perhaps it would be a good idea to get some take out delivered. It had probably been a while since he had actually eaten. There was a plate on the corner of the table. At one point it had contained a sandwich that Pepper had brought down to him as a plea to try and get him out of the workshop. Tony wondered how long it had been since then.

Either way, it wasn’t like he was planning on coming out of his workshop any time soon. Now that Pepper was his CEO he found himself with a lot more free time. It was quite relaxing actually.

“Sir, it seems that I have found something that might be within your interest. SHIELD has a report on the discovery of Captain America.”

Tony looked up at that. He knew that Howard had been searching for the plane and Captain America up until the day that he had died. It was almost funny that someone found the good Captain a little over twenty years since his old man crashed and killed himself. “Huh. That’s good. It’ll be good publicity for them. _SHIELD brings_ _The First Avenger_ _home_. I can just imagine Fury’s smug look.”

It was a very good find. He couldn’t help but wonder what was going to happen to Steve Rogers’ body. Knowing SHIELD they would probably extract as many samples as they could to see if they could recreate the Super Soldier serum. As if that would do them any good. Tony snorted under his breath. It had gone so well for Banner. He was almost wondering what other kinds of crazy things they’d be able to do now with a sample of the original serum in their hands.

“-appears to be alive.” His head snapped upwards towards the ceiling. Jarvis wasn’t really there, but he liked having a direction to focus on when talking sometimes.

“Sorry. Run that by me again? I was already preparing my speech for when Fury undoubtedly screwed up.” His hands waved in the air as he spoke.

Jarvis was silent for a few moments, which was very strange. He understood the AI’s trepidation when he repeated himself. “A report was submitted by his assigned doctor. Due to the serum, Captain Rogers appears to be alive.”

He totally meant to fall out of his chair. There were no witnesses besides his bots and AI and he was quite sure that none of them would ever rat him out. Tony pushed the chair away as he grabbed onto the edge of the table to pull himself up again.

“What? He’s _alive_?” It could make sense. Tony had gotten his hands on Howard’s reports from Project Rebirth. With everything that the serum had done for Steve Rogers, it wasn’t like he should be too surprised at what else it was able to do.

“There seems to be a correlation with Captain Rogers’ survival and the Super Soldier serum. The doctors at SHIELD hypothesize that his body went into a state of hibernation by slowing his metabolism drastically.”

Tony had already swiped away the other screens and enlarged the one containing the information on Captain Rogers in front of him. The plane that he had flown into the arctic had been found two weeks earlier and the Captain had woken up the day after. Apparently he had caused quite the commotion when he broke out, dashing into the streets of New York. Not that Tony could blame him. He could only wonder at what it did to a man to find out he had been sleeping for over seventy years.

There were a handful of different reports that he quickly skimmed through. They included the initial doctor’s reports, the following reports after Rogers had woken up and reports from an assigned therapist.

He clicked and dragged a video recording of the Captain’s first appointment with the therapist. It was almost surreal to see the man sitting down in a chair, slowly answering the woman’s questions. Luckily Tony had half the mind to remember that he had shoved the chair away or he would have fallen flat on his ass when his legs suddenly refused to cooperate.

He placed his elbows on the table, leaning on them heavily to keep himself up. His eyes never left the screen in front of him, though.

_“The point of this initial session is just to help get you used to the proceedings that we will follow. I want to make sure that you feel comfortable with what we are doing and that you know that you should never hesitate to talk to me about anything.”_

Rogers was sitting straight in the chair, a far off look in his eyes as he stared out of the window to the side. It took him a moment to tear himself away from the scenery outside before he turned back to look at his therapist.

_“Thank you, ma’am. I’ll remember that, but I’ll be just fine when I get used to the idea that I’m in the future.”_

The words were polite and reassuring. The small smile on Rogers’ face was sure to charm the pants off of any woman, or man, in the vicinity, but Tony knew better. The look in the Captain’s eyes eerily reminded him of himself when he looked in the mirror when he thought he was going to die of palladium poisoning.

If there was something that Tony was certainly an expert in, it was being able to convince people that he was fine, even when he wasn’t.

The therapist went on explaining the sessions that they would be conducting and how SHIELD would slowly introduce him to the new century. During the entire speech Rogers’ eyes had moved back to the window.

The Helicarrier, where Rogers was no doubt in, was currently circulating Manhattan. Tony could only imagine how the man felt to be told that what he was seeing before him was New York. The city had changed a lot since the 1940s.

Some more reports and videos popped up as well, but Tony didn’t bother with them. He walked over to his chair and pushed it back towards the table. After he sat back down, he reached up to pause the video. Brown eyes carefully studied the Captain’s face.

Steve Rogers looked exactly the same as when he had gone down in the ice. Tony would know. Howard had constantly been talking about Captain America. Captain America this, Steve Rogers that. Once he had caught Tony in his study staring at an old photograph of the Howling Commandos. If he had caught Tony looking at anything besides that, he would’ve gotten a swift slap to the back of the head, but on this occasion he had actually sat down and told his son stories about the Captain. It was probably the most he had ever said to Tony in one sitting.

“Sir?”

Tony was pulled out of his reverie by Jarvis once again. He sighed as he ran his hands over his face. As a child, and as a teen, and as a young adult, even now still, Tony had idolized Captain America. Anyone who had been deemed worthy by Howard Stark had to have been an amazing human being. Now Tony had the man within his reach.

“J, do we have any outstanding contracts to finish up for SHIELD?”

“As a matter of fact, I have already pulled up those projects for your viewing, sir.”

He reached up to swipe away all of the data from SHIELD, but placed the paused video down in the corner. “You’re the best, J.”

It was time for him to do some exemplary work as a SHIELD consultant.

-

It was three days before he finally emerged from his workshop. Tony had been determined to finish up as many projects as he could to give himself a good excuse for suddenly showing up in New York without any announcement.

Of course, he had perpetual bad luck so he ran into Pepper on his mad dash back to his room.

She opened her mouth and turned on her heel as he walked past her, her face immediately scrunching up. “Oh my god, Tony. When was the last time that you took a shower?”

“I was just on my way to do that right now. Unless the world is ending or you have other catastrophic news, anything you tell me is going to have to wait. I’ve got important things to do.”

It was a testament to how much he liked and slightly feared Pepper when she gave him a look and he stopped in his tracks. One of her hands clutched a tablet to her chest as the other went down to perch on her hip. Oh shit. Was he in for it. Had he missed an important meeting or public appearance or something? Surely she would have gone down to the workshop to drag him away if that were the case.

Did she still do that though? He still didn’t have a new PA. Not after Natalie. Or Natasha. Whatever her name was. Tony was still bummed about how that had turned out.

“I actually made my way out here to make sure you were still alive.” Pepper told him in a huff.

He uselessly pointed at himself as he replied. “Well, it looks like I’m still up and running. There’s no need to worry. Was that all?”

“No. That was not all.” Oh great, now he had said something to tick her off. “I don’t see or hear from you in five days and now you’re suddenly running off to do ‘important things’? Tell me what’s so important.”

She was tapping her foot on the ground. He really hated it when she did that. It made him feel like he was five years old again and his mother was scolding him for smearing the floor with grease before she had guests coming over. “I finished up some projects for Fury, so I’m going to surprise him with my delightful presence.”

“You finished up some projects for SHIELD? Tony, last week you told me that you could write an entire thesis on how you were going to annoy Fury by ‘accidently’ forgetting to actually do your consultant work.”

“What can I say? Something came up.”

Pepper finally stopped tapping her foot. That was a relief. “Fine. After all these years, you would think that I would be used to you and your whims. I want you back here in three days, though. You might not be CEO anymore, but that doesn’t mean the board doesn’t want you at meetings.”

Three days. It wasn’t exactly a long time to work with, but he was Tony Stark. If anyone could swing it, then it was him. He clicked his tongue as he gave her a double thumbs up before running to his bathroom to have that shower.

He was in his suit within the hour. Taking his jet to fly to New York would take double the time it would compared to if he was in his suit.

The flight took a little longer than expected when he had to veer around a snow storm that had been accumulating in the mid-west, but besides that he had a relatively smooth flight.

It wasn’t that hard to get Jarvis to hook up to SHIELD and clear him for landing in one of the bays on the Helicarrier. Of course he added a little flair to his landing. All of the workers that were in the bay stopped what they were doing as they watched him land. Tony shook his limbs for a moment, getting used to being on a flat surface after having been in the air for a few hours.

A simple command was all it took for the armor to disassemble. “Hello folks, I have come to speak to your infallible leader.”

“I’m sure that director Fury will be delighted to see you, Mr. Stark.”

Tony turned towards the door that led into the bay and grinned when he saw a familiar face. “Agent! What a pleasure to see you. Are you here to escort me to see our favorite one-eyed pirate?”

Agent Coulson was watching him with exasperation. The last time that he had seen the Agent was when the man had come to say goodbye to him because he had been reassigned. As of so far Coulson was the only SHIELD Agent that Tony had met that he thought he could grow to like.

Coulson was a no nonsense I-will-taze-you-and-watch-Super-Nanny-while-you-drool-on-the-floor kind of guy, there was something about him that Tony liked.

He picked up the suitcase armor and walked over to the Agent, who immediately started walking as soon as he caught up to him. “Do tell me. What have you been up to? How was New Mexico? I didn’t get the full run down, but I’m sure you missed the best action.”

“Stark, you have no idea.” That was all that it seemed that Tony would get out of Coulson, as the man kept walking without elaborating.

Some of the other SHIELD agents stopped when they saw him walking down the hall, so he made sure to let them know that he saw them too. He made an appreciative sound when a short brunet walked by and winked at him. It was just the fact that Coulson grabbed onto his shoulder and pushed him into an elevator that he hadn’t stopped to make some small talk.

Tony was rocking on his heels, swinging the suitcase back and forth as Coulson reached over to press a button. The Helicarrier only had a few floors, so they were where they needed to be within seconds.

“These are some really nice digs, you know. They could be better though. I really don’t know why Fury didn’t listen to me when I came last. I could have made this place extravagant.”

“That’s because I find your choices questionable, Stark.”

Tony turned around and threw his free hand into the air as a greeting. “Fury! How’s my favorite director doing this wonderful day?”

“What do you want?”

“I’m shocked that you would think that I want anything from you.” Fury’s look could peel paint off of walls. That was how scary he looked right in that instance.

Fury was sitting behind a large desk, his elbows on the surface and his fingers intertwined in front of him as he stared at Tony from across the room.

He had been on the opposite end of that look quite a few times now. It wasn’t as effective as it had been the first time. A lot of people always looked at Tony like they just wanted him to melt in front of them. He was used to it.

The director still wasn’t saying anything to him, so he just continued on. “Remember that list of gadgets you wanted me to make? Well I made them. Or at least the plans. I know you want to see how everything works so you can give it a judging eye.”

It might have been a trick of the light, but it seemed that Fury’s glower darkened every time that he opened his mouth, which was entirely possible.

“Just tell me what it is you came to really badger me about and we can all continue our day in peace.”

“I take offense to that.” Tony pointed out. A single eyebrow rose as he spoke. “Right. Is that work bay that I used last time still free? I’ll whip up a prototype or two for you to look at.”

Fury didn’t have to say anything for Tony to understand that the man was weary of why Tony had shown up. They both knew that he’d rather build the prototypes in his own lab and then fly everything over himself. He knew that he wasn’t fooling anyone.

It seemed that his gamble had worked out when Fury just waved his hand at him. “Do whatever you want to. As long as I don’t see you here for the rest of the day or find out that you blew a hole in the side of my Helicarrier.”

“Sir, yes sir!” Tony saluted both Fury and Coulson as he turned on his heels and made his way to the work bay that he had claimed as his own.

This level of the Helicarrier was a lot quieter. The only people that were walking around were scientists and some high level agents, so he didn’t run into many people.

He sort of had an idea of where the work bay was, but he knew for sure when he approached a set of doors that had a sign on them.

**‘Stark’s Work Bay. Do not enter for fear of fiery death.’**

He was almost wounded that they actually seemed to think that he would leave anything behind that had the capability of burning someone to death. Toys like that always go back home with him. They were too much fun to leave behind.

The work bay looked exactly the same way as when he had left it. Tony was even sure that there were still some candy wrappers sticking out of the garbage can. He shrugged as he placed the suitcase next to the table and started up the systems.

He didn’t have any of his own tools with him, but Jarvis was always around. This was one of the main entry points in which he had added his AI into the system.

As everything started up, he started looking around to see what kinds of materials he still had laying around. There were a few things that he would need to create at least two of the prototypes that he had just told Fury about. It wasn’t like he would immediately go out and look for Captain America. That would be a little too much, even for him.

“Good afternoon, Sir. How may I be of assistance?” Jarvis piped up once he was fully linked in.

“Run the schematics for project SH18J493, would you? I’ve got to keep myself busy for a little while.”

Tony walked back to the screens and started flipping through his plans. He would work on this project for a little while before he went out on his scavenger hunt. There had to be a trip into Manhattan later for some sustenance as well. The Helicarrier had food that was alright considering they were on a floating base, but nothing beat New York’s finest food cart cuisine.

He muttered to himself as he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt and absently put on a pair of soldering googles.

Tony was very pleased to note that there was a lollipop under the goggles. It was cherry flavored and he hummed happily around it as he started rummaging around for the parts that he needed. Jarvis was helpful enough to start up some mood music. He bobbed his head as he mouthed along with the sweet AC/DC tunes echoing through the work bay.

Whenever he started working, he always got into the zone. Time was not relevant when he was working. The only thing that mattered was the project in front of him and how it needed to be perfect the first time. He wouldn’t settle for anything else.

Since he did not give time a second thought, he had no idea how much time he had spent in the work bay when the door behind him opened and closed within the span of a second.

In the time that he had been here junk had already started to accumulate in the room and he stopped his work when he heard someone hiss under their breath in pain.

He switched the soldering iron off and turned around to see where the noise had come from. Idly he registered that Jarvis had turned the music down, but none of that mattered when he saw the specimen in front of him.

The man was standing with his back facing Tony as he bent down to pick the offending piece of equipment that he had no doubt stepped on. All he could do was blink as the light sweatpants that the man was wearing pulled tightly around his ass. What an ass it was.

“You know, I usually don’t like it when people walk into my workshop unannounced.” He spoke up.

The man froze as he placed the equipment back on a shelf by the door. “I’m sorry. I was trying to get away from a few people and this seemed like a suitable place to duck into.”

Tony knew the feeling. So he shrugged. “Didn’t you see the sign on the door? That should’ve already told you how much of a bad idea it was to come in here.”

He was almost sad when the man started to turn around, which made him lose sight of that fabulous ass, but that all paled in comparison when he saw who the man standing in front of him actually was.

“Well bend me over and fuck me sideways.” Tony muttered.

Before any of them could say anything else, someone banged on the door. A strained look immediately crossed his guest’s face and he didn’t think as he quickly waved the man over.

The strained look turned into confusion before he walked over to where Tony was. Tony quickly shoved him behind a large shelving unit and covered his lips with his finger before he went over to the door. He made a point of looking very displeased as he opened it up.

There was an agent standing in front of the door, his cheeks slightly red and his hand still up in the air from his knocking.

“What do you want? Can’t you guess that there are some obviously genius things going on around here?”

The agent squirmed as he tried to look around Tony. “I’m sorry for interrupting you, Mr. Stark. But have you seen a tall, blonde man walking around on this level?”

He leveled the kid, because that’s what he was, with a bored look. “Do I look like I’ve seen the outside of this place in a while? What time is it anyways?”

“What? I-It’s nearly five pm, Mr. Stark.”

“Huh. That’s not as late as I thought. But to answer your question, no. I have not seen anyone fitting that description.”

The agent almost looked pained as he said that. He looked around Tony into the work bay once more before turning his gaze back into the hallway. “Thank you for your help.”

Tony shut the door, but stayed by the small window to make sure that the junior agent had walked off. It was a solid minute before he decided that no one was going to come back. It didn’t matter if the agent was a kid, he was still a SHIELD agent and they always liked to poke their noises into other people’s business.

He walked back to the desk and made a motion with his hand to get Jarvis to lower the music volume even more. “You can come out now, he’s gone.”

It seemed that his scavenger hunt wouldn’t be necessary. Tony had made up a list of the most likely places and times he would bump into Captain America. So color him surprised that the man had literally barged into his work bay.

Captain Rogers peeked out from around the shelving unit, looking very guilty. “Thank you. You didn’t have to do that for me, I came into your room without permission.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s always nice to make the junior agents squirm. I’m the reason why everyone avoids the coffee machine in the cafeteria.”

The Captain looked confused again for a moment before he walked over and held out his hand.

Tony took it and they shook hands.

“You still didn’t have to do that. I’m Steve Rogers.”

Tony pushed his goggles up to rest on his forehead. He was sure that he was covered in grease and looked like he hadn’t visited a shower in a few days, but what a better way to meet the Captain than in his own element?

“I gathered.” He started slowly. For all the plans he had made to run into Rogers for the past few days, Tony realized that he had no idea what he actually wanted to say to the man. “Stark. Tony Stark. Before you say it, yes I know that I look like Howard. You wouldn’t be the first person to tell me that. People tend to see me as carrying on his legacy rather than me making my own legacy and it’s something I hear a lot, okay?”

Great. He was rambling. What a way to make an impression on one of your idols. Now there was going to be yet another person that would immediately pin him for being maniac and not as good as-

“Do people really say that?”

His brain short circuited for a second. Rogers had taken a step back and was watching him carefully. Almost as if the man didn’t know what to make of him.

“Now that you mention it, I can see the resemblance. But I’m sure that if you hadn’t told me your last name I would never have made the connection.”

Oh god. His poor, malfunctioning heart was going to burst out of his chest. The arc reactor was going to pop out and he was going to embarrass himself all over again. How was this even happening to him? Now he was thinking like a teenaged girl talking to her crush.

“Huh. Bend me over and fuck me sideways, indeed.”

Rogers almost sputtered at that, his cheeks instantly reddening. It was a very good look. The blonde reached up and scratched at the back of his head. “I’m not exactly sure what that means?”

“Right. I guess you wouldn’t know. I’d be willing to bet Fury a million dollars that none of his junior agents swear around you.”

The strained look returned to Rogers’ face. It was a similar look that he always had during his therapy sessions. Tony was almost sure that the Captain was taking offense to something. The line of his jaw tightened and his shoulders pulled back just slightly. It would’ve been very hard to notice if Tony hadn’t seen it right in front of him.

Tony was quite an actor in hiding his feelings himself, but it seemed that Rogers was becoming quite adept at it as well. “I’m sorry.” He blurted out.

“It’s alright. What you’re saying is true. Every one of them seem to put me this- this pedestal. I don’t know what they’re making such a big deal out of. I’m just a kid from Brooklyn.” The strain became greater, but only slightly.

Following this train of thought would only cause Rogers to retreat further into his shell. Tony didn’t want to leave a bad impression on him. He quickly looked around to try and think of a distraction when his stomach rumbled. Blue eyes snapped down towards his stomach and he let out a nervous chuckle.

“How do you feel about getting some food? I could use a hot dog or two right about now.”

Rogers stared at the door and the line on his jaw tightened more. “Oh! No! You don’t have to leave again. I’ll just go down into Manhattan, grab the food and come right back here. No one has to find out where you are if you don’t want them to.”

Tony grabbed the stool he had been sitting on and plopped it down right in front of Rogers. “Sit down, make yourself comfortable. Don’t touch anything as I will not be liable for any injuries you might sustain. I’ll be back before you know it.”

He all but ran out of the work bay with his suitcase armor in hand.

It took him almost half an hour to fly down to Manhattan, get food and make his way back to the work bay. Tony was certain that he looked almost crazed as he dashed through the hallways with his armor in one hand and a large bag of street cart food in the other.

When he came back he was surprised to see that Rogers hadn’t seemed to have moved an inch from where he had been told to sit. The blonde was looking around the work bay as he came back in, blue eyes lingering on the schematics that were still up on the display in front of him.

Those blue eyes turned towards him as the doors banged shut behind him. He held up the bag with food as he walked forward.

“I wasn’t exactly sure what you like on your hot dog. Or what you like to drink. So I just made sure to get a little bit of everything.”

Tony placed the bag on his work table and started unpacking their food. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since Rogers had eaten or how hungry he was. He was pretty sure that he had read in the reports that the man had a high metabolism. Once he was finished there were a dozen hot dogs on the table along with at least seven different topping on the side and five different types of soda and a bottle of water.

He went over to the other side of the work bay and grabbed an extra stool for himself. Tony was aware at how Rogers’ eyes tracked him as he moved, flicking back to the food every few seconds.

“Go on. Dig in. They’re not going to bite back.”

A surprised huff escaped from the Captain as he reached forward to make his own hot dog. “Funny that you say that. With the diet that they have me on here, I’m almost scared to ask what is really all there.”

Tony reached over and grabbed a can of Sprite for himself. “Let me guess. They have you on a high fiber and protein diet. There’s probably a lot of green stuff with strange names.”

“How did you guess?” There was a small quirk in the corner of Rogers’ mouth before he bit into the hot dog. The appreciative sound that he made should have been illegal. “It’s good to know that some things haven’t changed.”

“Then I’m not going to tell you what’s in these.” Tony reached for his own hot dog, but stopped. Now he was curious. What was in hot dogs these days? “Jarvis, look up the fundamental differences between hot dog in the 40s and now.”

Rogers looked confused again; he seemed to wear that expression often around Tony, as he looked around the work bay as if he were looking for whoever it was that Tony was talking to. He didn’t have the time to explain before Jarvis replied, but he thoroughly enjoyed seeing Rogers jumped up from his seat and stare at the ceiling.

“As you specified yourself, Sir, perhaps it would be a better idea to withhold that information for the sake of your enjoyment of your meal.”

Tony grinned. He loved watching people react to Jarvis for the first time. “Relax, Cap. That’s just my AI. An artificial intelligence. He’s a computer program that I created.”

“It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Captain Rogers. I am Jarvis, or Just A Rather Very Intelligent System. I assist Master Stark in as much a capacity as I am able.”

It took a moment before Rogers relaxed again and sat back down on his stool. It was adorable the way that he actually faced the ceiling as he addressed Jarvis. “It’s a pleasure to meet you too.”

He was very satisfied by the Captain’s reaction. A lot of people were very cautious around Jarvis the first time that they met him, but it seemed like Rogers just took him for what he was and that was refreshing to see.

“You can ask him anything. He’ll tell you anything you want to know.” Tony pointed out.

Rogers pursed his lips for a moment. “I can ask him _anything_? No catches or tricks?”

Tony scoffed, placing his can down on the table. “Nah. I’m sure that you can take whatever it is that you want to know.”

The look on Rogers’ face bordered on hesitant, hopeful, sad and determined all at the same time. It was quite a thing to see the variety of emotions that went over his face before he took a breath and bottled it all in again.

“Jarvis, what can you tell me about the Iron Curtain and the Warsaw Pact?”

Tony was almost surprised that Rogers would ask Jarvis something that was so politically heavy. He was about to question the blonde when he noticed the focused expression on his face. This was clearly something that he wanted to take in.

Wasn’t SHIELD explaining these kinds of things to him? One would think that the first thing that you would do when a Super Soldier awakened from a seventy year nap was to help him catch up on history. Perhaps SHIELD was choosing to tell Rogers what they wanted him to hear. That was probably why the man had been so dubious about whether there were any tricks or not.

Tony knew what SHIELD was like. He himself had been subject to the need-to-know-basis that the organization had going on. As he stuffed the last bit of his hot dog into his mouth, Tony decided that he would leave Captain Rogers as he was.

If the man decided that he wanted to ask Tony anything, he would tell him whatever he wanted. For now though, he would let Rogers do his own thing.

While the man was doing that, Tony might as well get back to working on his prototype. Technically it was the reason that he had given Fury for his presence. He would be better off if he just did what he said that he would do. Fury was already judgmental enough of him.

-

It was another few hours before Jarvis alerted him that Director Fury was on his way to the work bay, and true to the AI’s word it was only a few short seconds later that the door banged open.

Fury swept in with Coulson and another agent. His eye narrowed at Rogers, who had swiveled around on the stool to face him, before it turned over to where Tony was working.

“Stark! What is the meaning of this?” He barked out.

Tony immediately held up his hands. “I didn’t do it.”

“Don’t you give me that tone. I stand up for a lot of your shit, Stark, but-”

“It wasn’t his fault, Director. I accidently stumbled in here and Mister Stark was kind enough to let me stay.” Rogers had gotten up from the stool, standing in parade rest of all things. He looked everything like an obedient soldier.

Fury clenched his jaw as he turned away from Tony to regard the Captain. “Captain Rogers. You evaded your escort and had Stark lie to keep your whereabouts a secret. I thought that we had an understanding on what was expected of you.”

Tony was sitting just behind Rogers, so he was the only one who noticed how the man’s fists clenched behind his back. “Of course, Director Fury.”

Fury took a moment to look between the two of them before he pointed at the door behind him. “You’re dismissed, Captain.”

Rogers’ shoulders drooped a little as he walked forward to leave the room. He paused in front of the door, however. “Thank you for your time, Mister Stark.”

“Call me Tony. You’re welcome to come back whenever.”

“At least call me Steve then.” Rogers – Steve said with a look over his shoulder before he left the room.

Tony raised his hand and lamely waved after him as Fury turned around and left along with Coulson and the other agent.

His hand flopped down uselessly onto his lap. That had certainly been an experience. It wasn’t at all like he had imagined their first meeting to be, but he was happy that it had gone the way that it had. Now he just hoped that Fury wouldn’t restrict Steve from coming to see him when he wanted to.

He let out a sigh as he turned back to his project. It was nearly finished now. It had been nice that he had been able to work on his own while Steve did his own thing. It was something that he could definitely get used to.

-

Much to his surprise, Steve showed up at his work bay often over the next few weeks.

Tony had been slightly worried that Fury would restrict Captain Rogers from seeing him again. So of course he had gotten curious and looked up Steve’s schedule. The first week that he had spent back in Malibu after meeting Steve, he had watched the man often.

And no, he was not stalking him.

He really wasn’t.

Not really.

It was purely for research purposes really.

The way that Fury and Steve had both acted made him wonder what was really going on behind the scenes with getting the man used to the 21st century.

The schedule was flat and had a lot of empty spaces. The Captain would see his therapist three times a week, have a few sessions scheduled where he was given updates on history and technology and there were some training sessions.

Any time that he wasn’t doing any of those things, he was left to his own devices.

Tony had Jarvis update him whenever something that seemed out of the ordinary happened.

The first night that Steve had holed himself up in the gym and beaten the shit out of several punching bags, Tony had just huffed at the display of strength. He guessed that a guy had to let out his stress one way or another. The second night he kept count of how many bags had been destroyed and after the third night he started getting a little bit worried.

Not only was SHIELD going to have to foot a gigantic bill in order to replace and buy new punching bags, but it seemed that Steve wasn’t getting a lot of sleep. The reports that he had dug up again made a note that Steve didn’t need as much sleep as the average person, but he didn’t seem to be sleeping at all.

After seven nights of watch Steve beat the crap out of punching bags, Tony had dropped everything in Malibu and made his way back to New York.

His excuse was that he was overseeing the construction of his new tower, but he made sure that he was always around SHIELD.

The tired look that Steve had given him when they ran into each other on the Helicarrier on his first day back had pulled at Tony’s heartstrings. His eyes were empty and there was evidence of dark rings underneath his eyes. The Captain really had not been sleeping at all if his body couldn’t heal those properly.

In the beginning their interactions consisted of Steve coming into the work bay, saying a greeting to Tony and then turning to Jarvis with his questions. It was clear that Steve was still trying to find his footing in his new circumstances, so Tony pretty much just left him alone.

It was hard to do. He tended to keep an eye out for whatever Steve was doing. A part of him was crowing in delight at how not-perfect Captain America really was and how he really had been put on an impossible pedestal by everyone. The other part of him was just sad. Steve was obviously struggling with his integration and it seemed that he wasn’t really getting the help that he needed.

There were a few times when he startled when Tony dropped some heavy equipment or he accidently blew something up. There had even been a time when Steve had thrown a plate at his head. That had not been a good day. Steve had just up and left without a word and Tony didn’t see hide or hair of him for a few days.

After that Tony made it his job to make sure that he could try and provide Steve with everything that he was lacking in his integration.

He watched some of the more recent therapy sessions. Steve was pretty much just telling the therapist what she wanted to hear, but made sure not to rouse suspicions by telling her different things.

Tony hacked his way into the system and found the curriculum that they were teaching Steve on technology and history. He made sure to highlight a few of the important things that would need to be elaborated and told Jarvis to include some of them in his explanations.

It wasn’t until Steve had been given the authorization to be allowed to reside at the ground base in Manhattan that he really turned to Tony for the first time.

Afterwards it seemed like a floodgate had opened up between the both of them. Tony would tear himself away from his inventions to teach Steve what he thought were the more fundamental things.

He wasn’t at all surprised to find out that Steve was a quick learner and wasn’t afraid to ask questions. A few lessons in working his tablet had given Steve enough of an advantage to knock the socks off of one of his instructors by suggesting alternatives.

Steve was incredibly fascinated with his armor as well. He had had a million questions about it when he had seen it for the first time.

All in all things were going great between the two of them.

When they had enough of history and lessons, Tony took Steve aside so they could work on the Captain’s motorcycle.

It was similar to the one that he had ridden in the Second World War and he viewed it as a prized possession.

“The first thing that you have to remember with SHIELD is that it’s an international spy agency. They like knowing things.” Tony’s hands were covered in grease as he rummaged around the engine of the bike.

He let out a triumphant sound as he pulled away a tracker. Steve leaned in and took the small device from him. “I don’t even use it and they’re already following me everywhere I go.”

Tony moved towards the handlebars and pulled off the rubber hand grips. It didn’t take long before he found at least three more tracking devices. “Au contraire, oh Captain, my Captain. They’re going to think that they have the ability to follow you around. That’s what you have me for.”

“How gracious of you Mister Stark.” Steve deadpanned.

Tony let out a snort of laughter as he pulled out his tablet and started tinkering with the tracking devices. SHIELD had a tight enough leash on Steve as it was, so it was the least that he could do to help the man feel freer than he actually was.

They did a lot of those kinds of things together. After finding the tracking devices Steve started asking questions on all of the ways that SHIELD tended to keep track of people of interest.

All Tony could do was sigh. It was such a long list. He made an entire presentation on their different protocols. He pointed out how they had a face recognition system; how they could track someone through their credit cards and the usual spy tricks.

“So a credit card keeps your money?” Steve asked one day as they ate some Chinese food that Tony had had delivered to the facility.

“Kind of? Your money is stored in a bank, which gives you the credit card. There’s an entire lesson I could give you about credit and everything, but I’m pretty sure that you’d just fall asleep.”

“I got a card from Agent Sanders earlier today, but it’s so strange. It’s a little plastic card with a chip in it. How am I supposed to check how much money I have?”

Tony held up a finger as he finished chewing. With anyone else he would have just spoken with his mouth full, but Steve’s disapproving look was even worse than Fury’s or Howard’s had ever been. “You can sign up for online banking. All you have to do is log in to your account and boom! All your information at your fingertips.”

“Very exciting. Is it possible to take out all of your money?”

“So many questions about money. You got back pay from the army, the government and SHIELD. Trust me, Steve. You don’t have to worry about anything.” Tony flicked some crumbs off of his shirt.

Steve just huffed and shook his head at Tony. “They aren’t strange questions. I grew up in the Great Depression, remember? I like knowing everything about my money.”

It started out with innocent questions like that. They started with the trackers, moved on to the money and eventually Tony even explained to Steve how IP addresses could be traced and he taught him a few basic hacking skills.

Steve took to all of those lessons with flourish. He had always seemed to be focused on whatever they did, but it was with these lessons that he was most concentrated.

About two months after Tony had found out that Steve was alive, and about five weeks after he had been spending all of his time in New York, Pepper called him. She needed him back in Malibu for some important business that included another board meeting and the wrapping up of some necessary details regarding Stark Tower.

He was sad that he was going, because he had genuinely started to enjoy being around Steve so often. Ever since he had been spending his time in New York with Steve, he had noticed an improvement in the Captain’s demeanor as well.

The dark rings that had formed under his eyes had faded away, he seemed to be more open to Tony and just more settled.

It was like he had finally accepted that he was in the future and there was nothing that he could do about it besides continue living.

“So I’m going to be gone for a few days. I have to appease some grumpy old men and get a few things in order. You know the drill.” Tony waved around his hand as he scurried around the space that he had been inhibiting during his stay in New York.

Steve chuckled behind him. The blonde was leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest as he watched Tony run around.

“Appeasing grumpy old men does sound familiar, yes.”

“Smart ass.” Tony piped up as he tossed a bag of knick knacks that he wanted to bring back with him to California on the table. This time he was actually taking his jet to get back home, so that meant that he could carry more things with him.

“I take offense to that.”

“You shut up.” Tony pointed a finger at Steve, who just smiled at him.

He rounded the room one more time to make sure that he had everything that he needed before he turned back to Steve.

They had been seeing each other practically every day for weeks. It was going to be strange to not have the Captain around at all times. Which reminded him. Tony walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a large portfolio.

Tony tossed it over to Steve, who caught it easily. “I made that for the shield. I know that you said that you weren’t sure if you were going out again anytime soon, but I know I feel a lot better when I can take my suit around with me.”

Steve gingerly held the portfolio in his hands, running his fingers over the seams. “Thank you, Tony.”

“Don’t mention it.” Tony grabbed his bag and walked over to Steve. He was about to say goodbye when he remembered another thing. He reached into his pocket and handed Steve a card. “It’s an access card. If you ever feel the need to get away from SHIELD, you can use that to get into any of my places. The new Tower here in New York or my place over in Malibu. You should really come out to Malibu one time. The sun, beaches and the best beach house on the west coast, which is mine if you hadn’t already caught on.”

He was worried that it was a little much when Steve stared down at the card in his hand and didn’t say anything. It wasn’t like he hadn’t gotten Steve gifts. This was just a very intimate one. Tony was inviting Steve into his private residences, which was a big deal.

Tony almost started apologizing when Steve stepped forward and wrapped his arms around his shoulders. Tony was shocked for a few seconds, not knowing what to do. For all that they had gotten close over the past few weeks; they weren’t really the touchy-feely kind of people. It took him a bit to reciprocate by wrapping his arms around Steve’s waist.

He could feel more than hear Steve breathing in deeply and sighing. “Thank you. For everything. I really don’t know what I would have done without you.”

“You probably would have wallowed in your self-pity and beaten the crap of hundreds of punching bags.”

Steve let out a soft laugh at that before he stepped away. There was an almost non-present tightness to Steve’s smile as he looked down at Tony. “Go catch your plane, Mister Stark.”

“It’s my plane; if I want to come late then they’ll just have to deal with it.” He knew that he couldn’t stay any longer though. Pepper would have his hide if he came back later than she had specified. Tony gave Steve a mock salute as he walked passed him to get to his car.

Steve had slung the portfolio over his shoulders as Tony stepped into the car. One of his hands was in the pocket of his pants and the other waved at Tony as the car drove off. He sat turned to watch as Steve got smaller in the distance, before he turned to face forward in his seat.

If he had waited a second longer he would have seen the smile on Steve’s face flatten into a blank expression.

-

The first thing he thought when he got the call was that he should have known.

He had just been settling the last of his affairs when his phone started buzzing insistently in his pocket. It took the phone going off five times before he excused himself from the meeting.

Pepper gave him a _look_ when he got up, but he gestured to the phone in his hands. If someone was calling him this often, so many times in a row then it was probably going to keep going off until he picked it up.

Tony accepted the call as he walked into the hallway. “You have reached the automated voice message of Tony Stark, I’m sorry to say that I’m not-”

“Well you better damn well make yourself available, Stark.”

“Fury! I’d say that it was pleasant to hear your voice, but I’m kind of in an important meeting right now.”

“Screw your meeting. We have more important matters on our hands. Captain Rogers has gone missing.”

Tony stopped his pacing when he heard the words. “What do you mean Steve has gone missing? How could you lose a super soldier? No one kidnapped him right?”

“What I mean is that we have footage of him leaving on his bike, yesterday morning.” Fury all but spat out at him. “Do you have any idea as to why we haven’t been able to track him since and that he seems to have closed his goddamned bank account?”

His stomach plummeted. He and Steve had removed the tracking devices that SHIELD had planted on the bike together. He was the one who told Steve the best ways to avoid being detected. He was the one who had answered all of Steve’s questions concerning the handling of his money.

Now that he thought about it, a lot of it was making sense. All the pieces were coming together in a clear picture. Steve had used Tony’s willingness to help him along his way to figure out how to get away from everything. Tony had told him how to disappear and stay gone.

It was all his fault.

He should have known.

Steve had been using him to get away from SHIELD. Tony rubbed a hand over his face, trying to ignore the fact that it was shaking. Fury was still ranting at him over the phone, but he couldn’t really bring himself to care.

Had everything that they had done together been a lie? Had Steve only seen Tony as his way to free himself from SHIELD’s grasp?

He finally realized why Steve had given him that hug now. It was to say goodbye. It was his way of saying thank you for giving him everything he needed to make himself disappear. To make it like he was never there.

Tony rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand as he let out a shaky breath. “Shit. Yes. I’ll see if I can find him.”

“You had better, Stark! Fury, out.”

He let out a shaky sigh as he leaned against the wall behind him. Why was this always happening to him? People were always using him or leaving him. Steve had done both of those things.

He threw his phone at the wall, silently cursing himself when it didn’t shatter into several pieces.

There was only one thing left for him to do now. Tony was going to have to find Steve himself, he would do whatever it took to find him.

-

Everything came to a head when Agent Coulson came into the penthouse of his brand new Stark Tower in New York. A Norse god, or alien who knew, named Loki had stolen the Tesseract from SHIELD while brainwashing Eric Selvig and Hawkeye.

Great, this was everything that he didn’t need at the moment. He had literally just connected his tower to the sustainable energy source and now this.

Tony was miffed when Pepper took his glass from him and handed him the files on the Avengers Initiative instead.

He was glad that she and Agent left when they did. He was going to have to do a lot of homework tonight. With a wave of his hand he brought the files up on a screen and he looked through the different files that he had been given of his teammates.

His breath caught in his throat when he realized that Captain America should have been in this line up. Steve should have been here with him. They could have fought together. Over a month had gone by and he hadn’t even been able to find a single ping of Steve anywhere in the continental United States.

Normally he would have been bragging about how good of a teacher he had been, but it was obvious that Steve had just been an exemplary pupil. He had taken everything that Tony had taught him and taken it to the next level.

Steven Grant Rogers had made himself untraceable.

It was a marvel really, especially in this modern day and age.

That was something that he needed to put aside though. Right now, this was the most important thing to work on. The world needed saving and he couldn’t stand aside and let that happen.

It didn’t keep him from wondering what difference it would have made if Steve had been around nearly every second.

While he was annoyed by the fact that Natalie- no wait Natasha – was constantly with him, it was good to have someone level headed at his back.

The capture of Loki in Germany had been too easy and the unexpected arrival of his brother Thor had been the tip of the iceberg.

Together he and Bruce had figured out what SHIELD’s actual end game was with the Tesseract. Before they knew it, everyone had gathered in the small lab they were working out of and they were shouting at each other.

It had all been part of Loki’s plan. He had been working to tear them all apart from the inside before they even had the time to firmly plant their feet down.

It was Natasha who came with him to restart the engines, but by the time that they got back it turned out that they were too late.

Hulk had fallen off of the Helicarrier. Thor had been ejected out of the air in the Hulk cage. Hawkeye had wreaked havoc and had managed to escape by stealing a quinjet. Worst of all was Phil.

Cards tainted with blood were tossed onto the table in front of him. Tony winced when he saw that they were Coulson’s vintage Captain America card set.

“You know, he was planning on asking the Captain to sign those for him. He never got the chance though.”

Tony tried to swallow around the lump in his throat. Natasha was silent beside him as he pushed himself out of the chair and quickly made his way out of the room. She followed him as he made his way to the bridge where the cage had been.

He shoved his hands in his jean pockets as he strained at the red stain on the wall. This is where Phil had died. The idiot had probably been thinking that he would be able to stop Loki. A lot of good that that did him.

With a deep breath he turned back towards Natasha who hadn’t said anything to him since they had fixed the engine. He knew that she must be feeling something for Phil. He also knew that she was probably blaming herself when it came to Hawkeye. Maybe she could have gotten him loose from Loki’s brainwashing if she had been able to go after him, but Tony had needed her help with the engines.

It seemed that nothing was going right for either of them today.

“What is Loki thinking?” He directed at her.

“What do you mean?”

“This can’t be it. This entire time he’s been putting himself in the spotlight. His crazy bow to me act in Stuttgart and the whole speech that he gave you. He’s been planning this from the start, but what’s his next angle?”

Natasha crossed her arms over her chest. “You’re right. Loki is all about showmanship. He wants everyone to know that he’s the one who’s been causing this chaos. He wants his name blazoned over-“

Tony waved his hands at her words. He stared at her as he finally realized what Loki was up to. “My tower. Sonofabitch!”

The two of them quickly commandeered a quinjet and made their way down to Manhattan. He waited for Natasha to get settled down on the ground before he shot up into the air to try and keep any more aliens from pouring through the wormhole that Loki had opened up above his tower.

It wasn’t long before Thor came to join the fight. Tony was also pleased to hear that Bruce had found his way back to them.

Just the four of them there would be a stretch, but he knew that if they stuck together then they would be able to kick Loki’s divine ass.

Tony had tried to get all of them on the same page. Thor was doing his own thing and the Hulk was happily smashing his way through every alien that he got his hands on. In the end it was Natasha who stepped up and got their shit together.

She was the one that he flew on top of the Tower so she could close the portal using Loki’s staff.

It all would have been easier if the WSC hadn’t decided to send a nuke to destroy Manhattan. He was dreading his decision as he grabbed onto the nuke and steered it up towards the worm hole.

“Are you sure, Stark? That’s probably going to be a one way trip.” Natasha’s voice came over the comms. She sounded so calm and sure. It was nothing like he felt.

“Close it if I’m not back within a minute.”

He knew that this was most likely going to be the last thing that he ever did and it stung. There were so many things that he still wanted to do or say. All he could think about as he flew into the other dimension and let the nuke go, was that he wished that he could have seen Steve at least one last time.

Tony hadn’t been expecting to wake up at all again and he really hadn’t been expecting to be woken up by the Hulk’s roar. He gasped as he tried to slow down his rapid heartbeat. “Did we win?”

The look on his teammates faces were more than enough reassurance. Thor was widely grinning down at him, the Hulk seemed satisfied and even Natasha seemed to have a smile on her lips.

It was a fabulous sight to be looking up at them and see the clear blue sky instead of deep darkness.

None of their faces were the one that he wanted to see.

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

163 hours and 53 minutes.

Only four hours and seven minutes longer and he will have been on the run for an entire week.

He’ll have felt the freest that he has since the moment when his eyes snapped open in a room that had been a poor imitation of the New York he had left behind.

To be honest, he was surprised that he had even made it this far. He had done everything that he had been told, though. He had taken the lessons that he had gotten and used them to the fullest. As of now, it seemed that it was working.

Steve had no idea how long this would keep working, or even if he was actually out of SHIELD’s grasp. He had shown them that he was perceptive by seeing through their illusions only mere minutes after waking up after having been frozen in ice for seventy years.

Was this another illusion?

That was something that he feared.

163 hours and 58 minutes.

He pulled up at a gas station just outside of Chicago. It had taken him longer than he had expected to make it here, but he had made a point of avoiding any major roadways. SHIELD was no doubt still on a manhunt for him and Steve was trying to be as discrete as he could.

Lake Michigan was gleaming in the distance as he grabbed a nozzle and started filling up gas. Steve leaned against the seat of his bike as he watched the numbers steadily tick upwards.

A few months ago he had visibly balked at prices of wares nowadays. Steve never owned a car himself, but he remembered that the gas prices had been about 19 cents per gallon back in the thirties. The price at this particular gas station was $4.67 per gallon. The influx in prices was staggering.

Once the tank was full, he put the nozzle back and screwed the cap of the tank back on. Steve pulled a cap out his side bag and quickly put it on before he made his way inside of the gas station to pay.

Steve only had a few hundred dollars on his person. The rest was stowed away a secret compartment in his side bag along with his shield.

The store was small. Nothing like one would expect for a station that was only a few miles away from a large city such as Chicago.

It had a lot of basic items on hand. One side of the store seemed to have been set up as a small convenience store. Steve was pretty certain that this was a popular place to fill up before making the stretch in the city, where the gas prices were undoubtedly higher.

He had planned on just paying for his gas, but he couldn’t help but walk into the other section of the store.

Something that was strange to him was the vast variety of items that stores had. Back in his day there hadn’t been much of a choice and now he was staring at a shelving unit that held five different brands of the same type of cookie. A chocolate chip cookie was a chocolate chip cookie. What made the difference?

With a soft huff he turned back towards the counter where he paid for his gas.

The clerk didn’t seem very interested in him, didn’t even look away from his newspaper as he handed over the cash for his gas. Steve kept his face tilted down to avoid the security camera in the corner behind the clerk. As small as this place was, he was sure that SHIELD had their dirty little fingers in a little bit of everything.

Steve left the station without looking back, but he couldn’t help but look at his bike as he walked back. Some teenaged boys were staring at it from the back of a minivan as their mother pumped gas. He couldn’t really blame them for it since he had probably looked at it the same way the first time he had seen it and found out that it was his.

The excitement at seeing the bike had dulled when Tony had reached into small crevices and pulled out a handful of tracking devices.

Steve couldn’t help but feel his stomach drop whenever he thought of him. A quick look at his wrist watch told him that it had been 164 hours and 15 minutes now.

He quickly switched his cap for his helmet and he sped off immediately after.

The road into Chicago was busier than he had expected it to be. It was nearing rush hour, but he still hadn’t expected to see so much traffic.

Lake Michigan was still gleaming on his right side as he finally drove into the Chicago city limits.

Steve wasn’t exactly sure why he had chosen Chicago as his first big city stop. He had just gotten on his bike and went wherever the road had taken him. He had been in Chicago once before, in 1942 during his bond tour.

The city was bustling as it finally reached rush hour and the dinner rush. It was easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle of the city. It almost reminded him of New York.

Since he had no specific direction of where he wanted to go, he just steered his bike through traffic until he reached a quieter part of the city. Now he just had to find a motel where he could stay for a day or two before he could decide where he wanted to go next.

He was about to turn into a road when he say a large flashing sign advocating an automotive body shop. Steve wasn’t sure what had made him turn towards the shop, but he suddenly found himself parked in front of the garage.

Steve stared inside where he saw a few men wandering around and working on a few cars. It was quite the achievement that he didn't start when someone spoke up beside him.

“Can I help you?”

He took his helmet off to address the young man who had approached him. Despite the chill that the wind was bringing, he was standing next to Steve in a grease stained short-sleeved shirt. The young man was wiping some grease off of his fingers as he waited for Steve to respond.

“I-” Steve looked around. The young man shuffled a bit, indicating that he was getting impatient. “Is it possible to get some modifications for my bike here?” Is what he eventually asked.

The young man took a step back as he looked at the machine in front of him. “Harley softtail slim, very nice. We could probably do quite a few things depending on what it is you actually want.”

Steve placed the helmet on his lap as he fiddled with the chin strap. “A paint job might be the best place to start right now.”

The bike was around enough that he wasn’t expecting SHIELD to be looking at everyone who was driving one, but just making a few changes to it might help him just a little bit. The license plate on the back wasn’t real either. It had taken Steve a little bit to do, but eventually he had been able to make one that looked very similar to the original. A different color bike with a different license plate, it would have to do for now.

“That’s something that we could do. Is there anything that you have in mind?” The young man reached back and shoved the grease covered cloth into his back pocket.

Blue. That was what he wanted, but Steve couldn’t exactly bring himself to say it. Blue came in many different shades, he of all people would know, but there was something inside of him that was telling him to steer away from it.

“Red.” Steve eventually said, as he looked at a sports car that was parked close to him. “And if it’s possible, could you make all of the chrome a matte black?”

That sparked up a conversation about the different steps that would have to be taken in order to prepare the bike for painting and he eventually ended up inside one of the offices as he chose the exact colors that he wanted.

The red that he chose was familiar, even if he couldn’t quite place it at that moment. Afterwards he was given a price estimate and a timeline of two weeks. Apparently a lot of work actually went into painting a motorcycle.

There was a part of him that was telling him to politely tell the man that he would have to take the night to make a decision and then leave the city before he was tethered once more. Another part of him was arguing that it wouldn’t be too hard to stay under the radar in a busy city. Maybe he could take the time to properly plan out a route that he could take somewhere. It would give him time to procure a few items that he needed as well.

In the end he left after shaking the young man’s hand with the promise that he would be back in the morning.

Steve would take this chance to go out into the world and experience it firsthand instead of from word of mouth. He pulled into a motel not too far from the body shop where he paid for a room for two weeks.

That night he didn’t sleep. He couldn’t have slept more than eight hours in total since he left SHIELD. The red numbers of the digital clock on the side table next to the bed glared at him the entire night. It was silent, but he could still hear the constant ticking as time went by.

174 hours and 37 minutes and counting.

-

Steve felt oddly as ease as he started exploring Chicago on foot. It was nerve wracking that he had to leave his shield behind in the motel room, but a person wandering around with a giant portfolio on his back was sure to catch some attention.

He often found himself wandering along the side of Lake Michigan, taking in the harbors and all of the boats on the water. He could never get himself to actually step down to the water line though. There was still a trepidation that ran through him as he saw the water gently lapping where it met land.

Millennium Park was another place where he liked to walk around. When he had come to Chicago back in the 1940s there had been no time for him to discover the city. Now he had all the time in the world.

It was very easy to lose himself in the masses. He found himself looking at the people, picking out the tourists as they walked along. Some of the other places that he visited were the Bean, Grant Park, the Adler Planetarium, Wrigley Field, and he had spent an entire afternoon at the Lincoln Park Zoo. Steve had spent most of his time wandering around before he found a place by the snow leopards. He sat down and watched the large felines for what seemed like hours as they slumbered, only getting up a few times to move around as they held their big bushy tails between their teeth.

His fingers felt like they were itching every time that he saw a scene that caught his eye in particular.

Steve had actually gone into an art store and had come out with a sketchbook and some pencils. He couldn’t yet find it in himself to draw anything though. Often times he’d be sitting down, just staring at the blank pages in front of him.

Time went by.

The people around him seemed very sensitive to the passing of time. There were always people rushing to make it on time to work. Tourists walking around as they decided how they would spend their day in the city. The way that the city seemed to get livelier every time that lunch or dinner came around.

294 hours and 41 minutes had passed when he left the body shop after having dropped by to check on the progress of his bike.

It had been taken apart and was in the process of being sanded down as it was prepared for paint.

The motel where he was staying wasn’t far from the shop, but he still felt the need to be outside.

Sleeping was a past time that he would rather pass over. His dreams were often muddled by the time he managed to wrench himself out of his sleep, his breath fast and his heart thudding rapidly in his chest.

Steve could never remember what it was that he exactly dreamed of, but the feelings that plagued him when he woke gave him a good idea of what it had been.

The weather was balmy enough that Steve could walk around with his bomber jacket open without getting cold. He ran a little warmer than the average person due to the serum. At first he had been slightly concerned that it would be cold in a city so far north. He had been proven wrong as of so far.

He was passing by an alley when he heard sounds of a scuffle. Immediately Steve stopped in front of the alley to see what was going on. Even if he was planning on keeping a low profile, it didn’t mean that he wouldn’t help anyone if they needed it.

A little further into the alley he finally spotted some people. At first glance it seemed that there were only two men, until the one who had his back towards Steve pulled back his fist to punch someone in front of him. The other man didn’t seem to be in any pain, so it clearly couldn’t have been him who had been hit.

Steve moved to the side and he caught sight of another person. The man at the back was holding onto a young man, if he even was that old, as the other gripped the boy’s face to pull it towards him.

“Look, kid. I don’t buy it. How about you tell me where Andrew is before things get really uncomfortable for you.”

The young man was looking up at the brute with a resolute look on his face. He scrunched up his face for a moment, almost looking like he was contemplating his answer before he snorted and spit in the brute’s face.

The first brute immediately reeled back as he wiped away the spit. When he was done his expression became thunderous.

“You ain’t going to get anything from me! I don’t know what you think of me, but I ain’t no squealer. Go fuck yourself!” The kid struggled in the second brute’s arms as he tightened his grip on him.

It was clear that the first brute was already readying himself for a few more punches, so Steve decided that he couldn’t just stand around and not do anything anymore.

“Hey! Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”

Both brutes immediately turned towards him, their faces curled back in similar scowls. The boy kept on struggling, trying to get loose as they were distracted.

The first brute barked out a laugh. “Run along, pretty boy. This here isn’t any of your business. You’d better leave before you get hurt.”

“I said, why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” Steve spoke up, pulling his shoulders back as he glared over at the men.

They just huffed as the first brute turned back to the other before he turned back towards Steve. He walked over, his hand pushing back his jacket to reveal the gun that was nestled in the side of his jeans.

“Well, I said you’d better leave before you get hurt.” The man stood in front of Steve, not looking one bit intimidated even though he was the shorter of the two of them. He reached out and prodded Steve in the chest. “This isn’t something that you need to worry about, so why don’t you run back home to your mommy and shove your tiny little dick in her-”

He cut off in a shout of pain as Steve grabbed his wrist and broke it with a simple twist. His other hand immediately reached for the gun, but Steve caught him by the back of the neck and threw him into the brick wall of the building next to him. The brute crumpled in pain and flinched as Steve reached down to grab the gun.

Steve made a show out of slowly inspecting the weapon, checking the cartridge to see how many rounds were in it and then flicking the safety on and off. He looked up at the second man, who was glaring at him.

“You asshole!”

Just in that moment the kid managed to turn himself in the man’s grip enough so he could turn his head to sink his teeth into the man’s hand.

Another pained shout rang through the alley as he shoved the kid to the ground to clutch at his injured hand. Steve took the opportunity to kick his legs out from under him. His head slammed against the concrete as he fell and he was groaning in pain much like the other man behind them.

Steve checked the man’s pockets to make sure that he didn’t have a gun on him as well and came back with a pair of brass knuckles. “You do realize that these are illegal, correct?” Steve waved them in front of the man’s face before slipping them into his back pocket.

He turned back towards the young man, who had picked himself off of the ground and was wearily looking at Steve. His eyes were firmly trained on Steve as he walked over to the second brute who was still on the ground. He left out a huff of laughter as he raised his leg and started stomping on the man’s side. “How do you like this, huh?”

Steve quickly grabbed the neck of the kid’s hoodie and started dragging him away. “Hey! Let me go! I gotta teach them a lesson! Ain’t no one going to mess with me!”

“You need to learn how to pick your fights.” Steve almost stopped in his tracks as the words left his mouth. Suddenly he wondered if Bucky had felt so exasperated at him every time he had to pull him away from a fight. He tried to swallow around a big lump in his throat as he pulled the kid out of the alley and back towards the street.

By the time they were standing on the curb, the boy had seemed to understand that there was no way that he was getting away from Steve. When he finally let the kid go, he crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at the ground.

“Look, I don’t know who you think you are, but I could’ve taken them! You didn’t have to help me or anything.”

“I’m sure that you were doing just fine on your own. I just can’t keep myself from letting bullies have their way.” Steve said as he looked down at the kid in front of him. He was dressed like a lot of teenagers seemed to be these days. Baggy jeans with a hoodie that was two sizes too big and a ragged beanie on his head. There was dirt on his cheeks and a bright white scar on the bridge of his left cheekbone.

The boy huffed as he kicked at a stone with his dirty sneakers. “Well, I guess I can’t complain too much. You were totally boss though! Taking out both of them with three moves. You made it look very easy.”

It was easy. Steve could have done a lot more damage with those three blows, since he had held back most of his strength. He couldn’t help but notice how his heart was racing in his chest. It had been a long time since he had gotten into a fight, however brief this one had been.

“Are you going to keep that, or can I have it?”

Steve looked back up to see that the boy was pointing at the gun that he had put in the inside pocket of his jacket. “No. I am not letting a kid walk around with a weapon.”

The boy groaned out loud in disdain. “I ain’t no kid! I’m sixteen alright? Besides, you don’t seem like the type to need a gun so why can’t I have it?”

“You’re still a minor. You’ve probably never even held a gun before.”

“I have so!” The boy gritted his teeth as he glared up at Steve, his eyes as unwavering as they had been when he had been trapped by those two brutes. “Fine, at least let me have the knuckles then.”

“No.”

The boy let out a groan in frustration as he threw his arms in the air. “Look here, boss. Something like that would really help me keep guys like that off of my back. I get tired of being pummeled on every other week, okay?”

Steve simply shook his head as he reached up to put his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “I’m going to get rid of them as soon as I have a chance. Now, tell me where you live so I can bring you home.”

“Oh my god. I don’t need you breathing down my neck! With the shit that Andrew pulled, I have more than enough people looking for me. Just because you walk me home doesn’t mean that they’ll back off.”

It was clear that the boy was frustrated and Steve couldn’t help but smile a little at that. There was something about the way that the boy was acting that he found very familiar.

He was going to have to make sure that those two men didn’t have any friends who were going to show up, just to be sure. “Alright, I’ll stay with you until you decide to go home by yourself.”

The boy’s mouth actually dropped open as he looked up at Steve with an incredulous look. His body tensed up as he looked around, almost like he was contemplating if he would be able to make a run for it. Not that it mattered. Steve would easily be able to keep up with him, even if he wasn’t familiar with the area at all.

In the end the boy just deflated as he shoved his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie. “Fine. Whatever, you’re the boss.”

Steve simply waited as the boy finally decided that he would go along with his plan and head home. With a loud sigh the boy turned on his heels and swiftly crossed the street. Steve quietly followed after him, making sure to look into the alley to see that the two brutes weren’t going to follow them around.

The boy resolutely kept his gaze at the road in front of him, his jaw clenching every so often when he looked out of the corner of his eye at Steve. They walked in silence, the only sounds around them were from cars and obnoxious music that was starting to border on being too loud.

It was already fully dark by the time they made it to a rundown building. The boy beckoned him over as he shoved open a large, squeaky gate that led into a side alley. Steve pulled the gate shut behind him as the boy walked around the corner to enter the building through the back.

Steve frowned when he saw that there was no back door in the frame, but didn’t say anything as the boy pulled out a small flashlight from his pocket to lighten their way up the stairs. They climbed to the third floor before he finally broke off to the side to continue down a hallway. The building looked just as rundown on the inside as it did on the outside.

The wallpaper on the walls was peeling and even completely broken open in some places. The floor was littered with old newspapers, glass bottles and cigarette butts. Steve could even smell the scent of marijuana as they walked past several doors.

The boy eventually stopped at a door at the end of the hallway. He opened the door slightly before reaching in somewhere near the bottom. He felt around for a few moments before he let out a soft triumphant sound. It wasn’t until then that he pushed the door open all of the way. Then he turned back to Steve, that same petulant look on his face.

“There. I’m home. Can you go now?”

This place was bad. Steve couldn’t even imagine what the apartment that the boy was staying in looked like. He should have guessed that such a ragged looking teenager who was in trouble with guys like the ones he had just seen wouldn’t live in a nice house. Even the ratty apartment that he had shared with Bucky back in the day hadn’t looked this bad.

“Are you going to go, or what? Maybe you’ve changed your mind about that gun?” The boy was looking at him with a grin as he held his hand out.

Steve pulled his jacket closer towards his body. “I’m still not giving you a weapon.”

The boy sighed and tilted his head back so he could stare at the ceiling. “Fine. Can’t blame me for trying. But seriously, you can go now.”

“Alright. Be careful.”

“Please, my middle name is careful.” The boy said with a scoff before he closed the door in Steve’s face.

He sighed as he stared at the peeling paint of the door in front of him. There was a shuffling sound near the bottom of the door where the boy had been feeling around. There must be some sort of lock there to keep people out.

Steve didn’t want to leave, especially not now that he knew what kind of place the boy was staying in. He knew that he couldn’t stay, so he simply turned back to leave the way that he came. It wasn’t dark enough that he couldn’t see where he was walking as he descended down the stairs.

A streetlight was flickering and humming loudly as he closed the gate behind him and stepped back into the street. He hadn’t been paying too much attention to where they had gone and it took him a little while before he found his way back to the motel.

He took off his jacket and tossed it over the back of the chair in the room, the gun glinting at him. Steve stared at it for a moment before padding over to the bathroom.

He brushed his teeth and washed his face, pausing when he noticed the coarse hair on his face. When he looked up at his reflection, Steve wasn’t sure who he was looking at.

It was a feeling that he was getting a lot these days. Who was he really?

Captain America had died when he had crashed the Red Skull’s plane into the Arctic. Steve Rogers…. Steve Rogers had died along with Bucky that day on the train.

He pushed himself away from the counter and fell down face first onto the lumpy mattress of the bed. Would tonight be a night for sleep, he wondered as he stared at the glaring red numbers.

298 hours and 6 minutes.

-

Steve stayed inside of his motel room for the next two days. There was still some snacks inside of his saddle bag, including some leftovers that he had brought back from his days out in Chicago. They were hardly enough to keep him satiated, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave the room.

Television was a good medium in which to lose time. Each program blurred before his eyes as the day ticked away. The mindlessness of what was on the television was enough to keep his mind from wandering very far. He wasn’t really paying attention to what was on the screen, why would housewives be desperate anyways, and he spent a lot of time staring down at the empty pages of his sketch book.

Once he had tried to draw without thinking, but he had stopped once he recognized the eyes that were staring back at him. The paper had immediately been torn out and tossed into the trash bin across the room.

At one point he started getting restless. His body was almost screaming at him in frustration at being still for two days. Pent up energy inside of him was crying out to be released.

Eventually he gave into it. Steve put on some comfortable clothing, slipped into his running shoes and put his cap on and left.

He idly ran through the streets, easily dodging past other people on the sidewalk. The fresh air was a good trade for the stuffy, moldy smell of the air that lingered in his motel room. His limbs were singing out in glee as his feet slapped against the pavement and his arms pumped next to him.

It was hours later when he finally allowed himself to slow down. Steve had let his feet take him wherever, not caring where he went as long as he was in motion. He slipped into a nearby convenience store to get himself some water along with a sandwich and a loaf of banana bread.

Steve stepped out of the store and tilted his face up towards the sky, soaking in the sun as it shone above him. He started off in a random direction as he tore pieces off of the somewhat stale sandwich.

Before long he started to recognize his surroundings. He wasn’t exactly sure where he was until he stopped in front of a familiar metal gate. His curiosity got the better of him as he pushed the squeaky gate open and slipped past.

The building looked even worse in the light as it had when it was dark outside. Steve pressed himself against the wall as a scantily clad woman giggled as she pulled an older gentleman in a suit down the stairs, not really sparing either of them a glance before he turned down a hallway when he reached the third floor.

Luckily for him he had to go down to the door at the end of the hallway, since he wasn’t quite sure if he would have remembered which door to knock at otherwise.

Steve stood in front of the door for a few moments, staring at the peeling paint once more. What was he even doing here? It wasn’t like there was any reason for him to be standing in front of this door again. He hesitated for another moment before he raised his hand and quickly raped his knuckles against the uneven grain of the door.

For a while he thought that no one was in the apartment and was prepared to leave when the door opened slightly. An eye looked up at him before there was a loud curse and the door slammed shut.

Steve stared at the door in surprise, waiting to see what would happen. When the door stayed firmly shut he raised his hand and knocked again.

“Go away!” Muffled words came through the closed door.

He wasn’t going to give up that easily. “I just came by to make sure that you were okay.”

“I’m fine!” Rang out straight afterwards. “Now go away!”

He reached up to scratch at the side of his jaw, before he heard the rustling of plastic. He had completely forgotten that he was still holding the bag with the items that he had purchased earlier. “I have banana bread.”

It was silent again, so he thought that the boy had gone further into his apartment to avoid him, but eventually the door opened once more. A dark eye glared out at him from the crack of the door. “What kind of banana bread?”

Again with the vast variety of products. “Uh, I’m not exactly sure?”

“How could you buy banana bread without choosing which specific one you want?” The door opened further as the boy looked out at him.

“I never knew that there was more than one type?”

Steve was pretty sure that the boy muttered something about being an uneducated oaf under his breath. His hand shot out to grab the plastic bag after he opened the door further. The boy held the bag close to his chest. “Close the door behind you.”

Even though he was surprised at the turn of events, Steve quickly slipped into the room and shut the door behind him as had been requested. His first assumptions of what the apartment would look like were proving to be right. The walls were in no better condition than the ones in the rest of the building. The windows were covered up with torn drapes and he was pretty sure that there was a broken one that was covered in old newspapers.

He followed the boy towards a ratty old couch. The boy set the bag on the table before he went into the kitchen behind him to grab a large knife and some napkins. He pointed the knife at Steve. “Don’t you try anything, alright? You might’ve helped me a few nights ago, but you ain’t getting anything out of it.”

Steve was leveled with yet another glare as the boy moved away from the kitchen to sit down on the couch. He remained where he was standing, his hands held out at his sides to show that he wasn’t planning on doing anything.

He stayed still even as the boy pulled out the loaf of banana bread and cut a few slices for each of them. “Chocolate and walnuts, not bad. I would have kicked you out if it had peanut butter or oatmeal.”

The boy was staring Steve down as he was handed his piece and he started eating, almost as if he was checking to make sure that it was safe to eat. It wasn’t until Steve had finished at least half of his slice before the boy started eating his own.

Not much had changed since he had seen the boy last. He was wearing a dark green hoodie this time, but still had the same jeans and the beanie firmly pulled down over his head.

They were silent as they ate. Steve crumpled the napkin in his hands and shoved it into his pocket, watching as the boy leaned forward to cut himself another slice.

It wasn’t until he was almost finished his third slice that the boy finally spoke up again.

“So what did you do with the gun?”

It figured that he would ask about that. “I’m not going to tell you.”

“Ah, come on! At least tell me that you didn’t toss it, because that’d be a real shame. Plus, you do realize that someone else is gonna get their hands on it right?” He furrowed his brow as he picked crumbs off of his chest.

“I don’t consider talking about guns to be a good conversation topic.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re the boss, I get it. Fine. Why did you come back here?”

Steve just shrugged his shoulders. “I already told you, I came to make sure that you were okay.”

The boy looked up and leveled him with a contemplative look. “So you didn’t come here for nothing else? No catches or tricks?”

The words resonated through Steve, suddenly remembering a similar conversation that he had had with a certain billionaire engineer. That conversation seemed like it had happened a long time ago. The numbers quickly ran through his head before they solidified in his mind. 2184 hours and 22 minutes.

He noticed that the boy’s expression had become more apprehensive because he had taken such a long time to answer. “Nah. You don’t have to worry.”

The boy leaned back against the arm of the couch as he pulled his feet up under him, the knife still in his hand. “I guess I believe you. What’s your name?”

“Steve. What’s your name?” He replied.

“Casey.”

Steve couldn’t help but smile softly. It had been a long time since someone had asked his name and not needed to know more about him. It had been the first time in a long time that someone had even had to ask his name.

“I used to know a Casey back in the day.” Casey Hodgins had been a young boy that had been in Steve’s primary school. He had died of polio before they made it into their teens.

“Good for you. Also, back in the day? Way to sound like an old fart.” The boy – Casey – scoffed at him. He looked over at the banana bread once more before visibly giving in and grabbing the rest of the loaf. He gestured at Steve to see if he wanted some more, but he simply shook his head to decline.

Casey hadn’t been the only one to point out how outdated his speech tended to be sometimes. Some of the agents back in SHIELD had tried to get him caught up on the modern ways of speaking. One of them had even laughed at him when he had said that the internet was the bee’s knees.

The boy gestured at a stool that Steve was standing by. “You can sit down, boss. I ain’t gonna bite, but the lice might.” He snickered as if he had made a hilarious joke before turning back to the banana bread, which was pretty much gone.

Steve took the invitation to sit down on the stool and took a moment to look around at the apartment around him. His tiny bedroom on the SHIELD Helicarrier had been much better accommodations compared to this. It was clear now to him that Casey lived by himself. He couldn’t help but wonder why a sixteen year old was living by himself, especially in a place like this. It didn’t even strike him as a rentable building. Steve was pretty sure that Casey, and the other inhabitants, were squatters.

Why wasn’t Casey in an orphanage? Unless he had run away from home. Steve wanted to ask, but he knew that that would be asking too much of the boy. Certainly because he was still cautious of him.

“So what were you doing the other night, wandering around the shady part of town?” Casey asked him as he placed the empty container back on the table.

For a moment he thought about lying, but he realized that it didn’t really matter in this case. “I was heading back to my motel. Why were those two men after you?”

“Are we playing twenty questions or something?” Casey clicked his tongue as he pursed his lips. “Those two goons were after a kid I know. He was part of their drug trafficking circle, but decided to skip town. Guess he must’ve gotten away if they were breathing down my neck. Where are you from?”

“New York. I was born in Brooklyn.”

“Ah really? But you don’t have that awesome accent. I know this old woman from Brooklyn and sometimes I can’t even follow what she’s saying.” Casey piped up, obviously looking a little put out.

Steve shook his head and chuckled. “I spent a few years in the army, the higher ups didn’t really appreciate anything that sounded disrespectful so you quickly learned to straighten yourself out.”

“Damn. That must suck.”

“I guess. I’ve been told that I do sometimes still slip into it though.”

They went back and forth for a while after that. Casey had been curled up with the knife by his side to begin with, but after a while he had moved to the arm of the couch that was closest to where Steve was sitting and he had left the knife on the table.

They talked about quite a few things. Casey had asked him the kinds of things that he had already seen in the city and he had dutifully told Casey what New York was like and what the ocean was like.

At times there were questions that broached subjects that weren’t freely given. Casey had asked him about where he had served and he had shut him down. The boy had done that same when Steve asked why he wasn’t going to school and where his parents were.

It was refreshing to be able to talk to someone who had no idea who he really was. After he had woken up people had looked at him as Captain America. This was the first time that he had been talking to someone about himself and they were interested in Steve as Steve and not as Captain America.

Time flew by. Steve didn’t even notice that it was starting to get dark until Casey had to get up and light some candles that were scattered around the room. He got up as well, intent on leaving.

“I’m sorry, I’ve stayed longer than I was planning to.”

“It ain’t a problem. I’ve decided that you ain’t that bad of a guy, Steve.”

Steve checked his pockets to make sure that he still had the key to his motel room and his wallet. Once he was sure that he had everything he made his way back to the door. Casey followed behind him with his hands in the pockets of his hoodie.

“Thanks for the banana bread. I know I ate most of it, and I can’t really give you anything in return.” Casey shuffled nervously as he watched Steve open the door.

Steve shook his head. “You don’t owe me anything. Not for the banana bread or the other night.” There was a tentative smile on the boy’s face as he raised a hand to wave goodbye. He was just about to step out of the door when he suddenly thought of something. “Maybe you can help me. Would you happen to know a place that makes fake identifications?”

Casey looked up at him in surprise, the smile falling off of his face. “Excuse me? Are you just assuming that I know about illicit businesses just because I hang around with non-law abiding citizens?”

He chided himself for asking. Casey was right, Steve couldn’t just start assuming things of him when he didn’t really know any real details about him. It was Casey’s sharp laugh the broke his out of his thoughts.

“Of course I know a guy! I do have one of my own, you know. As long as you have cash he can do just about anything. How ‘bout you come back in the morning and I’ll bring you to him?”

Steve nodded. For a moment there he thought that he might have overstepped his boundaries once more. “Alright. I’ll be back then.”

This time he made his way out into the hallway and Casey leaned against the door. “Just make sure that you don’t come by before ten. I do need my beauty sleep y’know!” With that Casey gave him a quick wink before closing the door. The sound of a lock closing near the bottom of the door sounded again and Steve made his way down the hallway and out of the building.

He looked up at the sky. Clouds were blocking out the moon, so it was a little darker than it had been the last time he had been standing on this sidewalk. But it didn’t really matter. This had probably been the brightest day that he had had in a long while.

-

“So ‘Todd Flynn’ how can I bribe you to get me some lunch?” Casey asked as they left the shop where they had met with the man who had supplied him with a fake ID.

Casey hadn’t said a word when he had given the man a fake name, which Steve had been very grateful for. He hoped that the boy just assumed that he didn’t want his real name on there because of reasons that he didn’t know about yet.

It was a cold day and Steve had zipped his jacket up all the way, burying his neck in the collar of the supple leather. Casey was walking next to him in his customary hoodie. This one was black with a brightly colored logo on the front. He wasn’t sure, but it seemed that this one was at least a bit thicker than the others ones he had seen Casey in.

Steve shook his head as they stopped at the corner of the street, waiting for the pedestrian light to turn green. “You could just ask nicely.”

“I can’t believe that it’s that easy, Todd.” Casey’s face scrunched up as he said the name. He had only known Steve’s name for less than a day, but it was strange to say the fake name out loud. “Y’know, I think I might just stick with boss.”

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Steve wondered out loud as Casey grinned widely.

“Because you took down those two goons like a boss! I told you that that first night, duh.” Casey turned around and started walking backwards as he looked up at Steve. He reached into his jean pocket and pulled out a squished packet of cigarettes. With a quick flick of his wrist, he placed the cigarette between his lips and used a beat up lighter to light it.

Steve immediately shook his head at the display. “Start walking like a normal person. Also, you shouldn’t be smoking those. I hear that they cause cancer.”

Casey’s lips curled up in distaste. “Whatever. They say that everything gives you cancer nowadays. You only live once, so I’m going to do whatever the fuck I want!”

He made a wide gesture over breathing in the smoke and blowing it out in rings. The boy turned around so he was facing forward as they stepped up onto the curb on the opposite side of the street.

It would take a few hours for the fake ID to be ready. Steve had been a bit hesitant about it when he had seen the crappy back room of a shop where the man made them, but Casey had assured him that it was the best place in town. He was a few hundred dollars lighter, and he couldn’t help but feel a bit worried about how he was giving out his money.

There was more than enough in reality. Steve had never before seen so much money in his life, nonetheless actually belonging to him. Although, he still felt like he should have been more frugal about spending it. In his pocket was an address that they had been given by the store owner that would lead them to an establishment where he would be able to purchase a laptop with an untraceable IP address.

He had asked the store owner instead of Casey this time, since he didn’t want to ask for the boy’s services again. Casey had carefully been looking at him the entire time that they had been in the back room, obviously wondering what Steve was actually running from.

Casey had pulled him into a restaurant where he had promptly grabbed a cup of crayons and some pages with drawings to color in. He stuck his tongue out at one of the waitresses, who just shook her head at him and grabbed his shoulders to lead him to one of the booths.

Steve had let Casey order for the both of them and before long they were eating burgers and fries. Despite the fact that he needed to eat a lot because of his metabolism, Steve found that he wasn’t really all that hungry. He idly nibbled at the fries as he listened to Casey talk about the times that he had fallen asleep in a dumpster outside this very restaurant and that he had been found by the owner.

24 minutes passed before Casey suddenly stopped midway through his third story when he looked down at Steve’s side of the table. “Whoa! That’s fucking awesome! Is that the Bean and the Smurfit Stone building?”

A woman at the booth beside them swiftly turned her head to glare at Casey for swearing out loud as she covered his toddler’s ear with her hands. Casey simply scowled right back at her before he turned back to Steve. “I had no idea that you could draw, boss.”

He hadn’t even noticed that he had picked up one of the crayons and he began drawing on the back of one of the pages that Casey had brought to their table. For weeks he had been staring at blank pages and thinking of some sort of outlet. The waitress had come back to their table when Casey had waved the woman over and he was happily showing off the drawing. When the waitress asked if they could hang it on their wall, he simply nodded.

“You are quite the artist. I couldn’t ever draw. I ain’t got no patience for that sort of thing.” Casey reached over the table and grabbed some of his fries, happily eating them when he realized that Steve wasn’t going to stop him.

Steve pushed the plate towards the boy, not really caring if he ate it or not. “When I was younger I wanted to draw for comic books, but I ended up joining the army instead.”

“Well, you ain’t in the army anymore. You could easily pick up a job with the way you draw. Remember what I said, you only live once right?” Casey winked at him as he picked up the rest of the burger that Steve hadn’t finished.

You only live once.

It was something that he had heard often enough, but for whatever reason he had been given a second chance. Why? Why was he still alive when practically everyone that he knew was now dead? What was so special about Steve Rogers that he deserved to be here right now?

-

12 days, 8 hours and 17 minutes after he had left his motorcycle with the body shop, he had gotten a call to his motel room that it was ready for him to pick up.

It looked better than he could have hoped. The gleaming metallic red was a great contrast to the mat black of the telescopic fork and the exhaust pipes. She still ran like a beauty too. Steve had happily thankedthe men at the body shop as he got back on his bike.

Steve hadn’t thought that he would miss it so much. The rumble of the engine between his legs and the ease in which he was able to drive through traffic.

The day was spent with just him driving in and around of Chicago.

When Casey saw it for the first time the day afterwards he had been very vocal about the fact that there was no passenger’s seat on the back of the bike.

It was a good few days, but it all ended that night when he realized that the two weeks that he had allotted himself were up. In the morning he would have to leave his motel room.

Steve had been planning on making a plan of where he wanted to go, but he hadn’t done that at all. It was about time that he moved on too. It had been 484 hours and 16 minutes since he had left SHIELD. There was no doubt in his mind that they would not give up on looking for him either. Chicago had been a good place for him to accustom himself to modern society on his own terms.

Apparently he had been quiet for too long for Casey’s tastes when he threw a water bottle at his head. “Oi! What’s going on in that head of yours boss?”

He picked the water bottle up off of the ground, gently placing it on the table in front of him. Steve almost didn’t want to tell his companion, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to leave without saying anything.

“I’m leaving tomorrow.”

The only sound between the two of them was the music playing off of his laptop from a CD that Casey had pulled out of the depths of one of his drawers. Apparently it was a mortal sin not to know who the Backstreet Boys were.

“What do you mean you’re leaving?”

“I mean, I’m leaving.” Steve gritted out. He was thinking that he should have just told Casey when he was leaving for the night. It would have made it a lot easier. “I stayed in Chicago while I waited for my bike to be finished and now it’s time to move on.”

Casey had pushed himself up from the relaxed position he had been in on the couch. “Move on as in never coming back?”

“Most likely.”

The tension was palpable. The silence between them was heavy in a way that it hadn’t been since the first night where Steve had gotten Casey away from the two men that had been after him for information.

Even then, the tension hadn’t been as loaded as it was now. Steve sucked in a breath and held it for a few seconds before he let it all rush out. “Casey, look-”

“No!” Casey’s voice rang out, his voice becoming a higher pitch as he jumped up from the couch. He paced back and forth a few times before turning towards Steve and pointing a finger at him. “You don’t get to pull that kind of shit! You can’t just force yourself into my life and then just leave.”

“If you’ll just listen to me for a-”

“I ain’t gonna listen to you! You knew all along that you were gonna leave and you bring it up the night before you go. Why are you leaving?”

“I’m leaving because I have to.”

“That ain’t an answer!” Casey threw up his arms in frustration, reminding Steve of the other time that they had had words with each other.

Steve wasn’t going to tell him. There was no reason for him to pull Casey in on his problems. “It’s the answer that you’re going to have to deal with.”

Casey let out a hollow laugh, running a hand over his chin as he stared out of a window. “I can’t believe it. I should’ve known better. People are fucking shit. What are you running away from, Steve? What is making you run away with your tail between your legs?”

“Nothing is.” He gritted out.

“ _What are you running away from, Steve?”_ Casey shouted out at him, his voice actually breaking from the force that he was putting behind it.

Steve jumped up from his stool, not faltering even as it fell over and knocked against his calves. “ _Everything!_ I’m running away from everything!”

Casey looked the way that Steve felt. Shocked. A saddened look crossed Casey’s face as he turned away from Steve. He took a shaky breath before he spoke again, this time so soft that Steve could barely hear it. “Stay. At least for a few more days, you can stay here instead of at the motel.”

It seemed that the boy wasn’t planning on sticking around for Steve’s answer as he quickly turned around and escaped into his bedroom. It was even more of a blow that Casey just softly closed the door instead of slamming it.

Steve wanted to go over and talk to him, but he knew that his company would be unwelcome now. He took one more look around the apartment before he grabbed his jacket and left.

-

The startled look on Casey’s face turned into happiness when Steve arrived the next morning, his belongings slung over his shoulder.

He told himself that he was only doing it for Casey.

-

He hadn’t been expecting Casey to find out, but he knew that with his luck it had been bound to happen sooner rather than later.

Since the apartment only had one bedroom, and Casey slept on a ratty single mattress, Steve had been sleeping on the couch. It was the one night that he had deigned to take his shield out from the portfolio that Tony had made for him because he couldn’t sleep.

Steve had been gingerly holding it in his hands, rotating it every so often to watch the candle light splay over the metal surface. He realized that he had been losing his touch when Casey made an inquisitive sound in front of him.

“That’s quite the replica.”

He only hesitated for a moment. “It isn’t a replica.”

“Of course it is. The real one went down into the Arctic along with Captain America. Everyone knows that story, boss.” Casey said, rubbing at his eyes with a soft yawn.

“You asked me why I was running the other day, right?”

That seemed to immediately wake Casey up, as his stance straightened before he sat down on the table. “Yes.”

“I’m going to tell you something, but you need to promise me that you won’t ever tell anyone. No matter what. This information does not leave this room.”

Casey’s head quickly bobbed up and down in barely contained excitement. Steve looked over at the young teen in front of him, the corner of his mouth curling up when he realized that the boy still wore a hoodie and his ridiculous beanie to bed.

It didn’t take long to tell his story. He could tell that Casey was thinking that he was a lunatic in the beginning, but the more that he spoke, the more Casey’s face seemed to show acceptance. Steve even let him hold onto the shield as he pointed at the various nicks and scars on the paint along with the stories of how they had come to be.

After he was finished telling Casey everything about him being Captain America during the Second World War, he started on the story of what his life had been like after he had woken up. He told him about SHIELD, director Fury and Tony. Steve had gone off on a tangent about Tony Stark. In the beginning he had felt guilty for having used the man to escape from SHIELD, but it had been worth it. There were no regrets on his part.

When he was finished he looked over at Casey, who was trailing his fingers along the lines that made up the star in the middle. “Wow. That is… I don’t really know what to say.” Casey licked his lips as he tried to formulate his words. “So you know Iron Man?” Was what eventually came out.

Steve just stared at him for a second behind letting out a huff of laughter. “I know Iron Man.”

“That’s so cool. I bet he’s an awesome guy.” Casey paused for another moment before he exhaled through his nose. “You just told me your biggest secret. I can’t even start with how…” He passed the shield back to Steve before he reached up to pull the beanie off of his head.

Long brown hair tumbled out from beneath the ratty beanie. Casey ran fingers through it to try and straighten it out, but it was so full of tangles that it stayed a mess. With another loud exhale Casey looked up at him, looking more vulnerable than the day that Steve said he was leaving, only 51 hours and 6 minutes ago.

“Uhm, I know this ain’t on par. But I guess fair is fair.” Casey’s voice sounded more relaxed than Steve had ever heard it, which was strange because the teen’s body was tense. “I’m female. I go around the way that I do because it’s safer to be a guy on the streets. Everyone that I know thinks that I’m a guy. Now you’re the only one in Chicago that knows who I am.”

A weight lifted off of Steve’s shoulders. It wasn’t as much as he thought it could have been, but he suddenly felt a little lighter. All he could do was smile at him, no, -her.

He held out his hand between them. “Hello there Casey, I’m Steve Rogers.”

Casey looked from his hand to him and then back before she raised her hand to shake his. “Nice to meet you, Steve. I’m Casey Thompson. Don’t think I’ll put up with your shit because I’m a woman. If there are some latent forties sensibilities left in you that I don’t agree with, you will know.”

They grinned at each other.

-

There was a large part of him that was innately happy that Casey knew who he really was the day that New York had been attacked.

They had been sitting at the counter of the restaurant that they frequented, Casey eating Steve’s left over fries as Steve was working on a portrait of the cook when Gladys ran out of the kitchen to the TV set that was behind the counter. She quickly changed the channel and turned up the volume as more of the staff starting pouring out of the kitchen.

Steve and Casey looked at each other in confusion before the clattering of people quietened down enough for them to hear what was going on.

“A large black hole seems to have opened up above New York and what we can only describe as extraterrestrial beings have started to pour out in troughs. Their numbers seemed to have quadrupled over the last hour even with Iron Man and an unnamed woman arriving on the scene-”

Steve pushed himself away from the counter and quickly approached the television, looking over Gladys’ shoulder. He stopped listening to what the newscaster when he stared at the live footage in front of him. Manhattan was a wreck. The camera moved along the debris that was falling from the sky, catching the bright red and yellow of the Iron Man suit flitting around in the sky to battle the aliens.

Before long Iron Man and Black Widow, who Steve recognized from his days in SHIELD, were joined by a green giant and a large man swinging around a hammer.

Everyone in the restaurant was piled close to each other as they watched the destruction.

An hour and 38 minutes had passed when the newscaster let out a sharp gasp and the camera panned over to Iron Man, who was holding onto what seemed to be a rocket and seemed to be steering it towards the black hole.

Steve watched with baited breath as Iron Man disappeared into the black hole and didn’t come out, even as the portal began to close. A hand reached out and gripped his tightly, but he barely noticed it when a blur fell out of the portal at the last moment.

The green giant caught him in midair and then all view was obscured when the other two heroes ran over to lean over Iron Man. The newscaster shouted out in joy when Iron Man finally moved again.

The atmosphere in the restaurant lightened greatly when the newscaster continued on to say that the portal had been successfully closed and all of the aliens seemed to have died as well.

Steve stumbled out from the crowd, tugging Casey out behind him into the side alley next to the restaurant. He finally caught his breath as he leaned against the wall. Casey was worrying about him, trying to get him to tell her if he was alright.

“That was a nuclear weapon.” Steve eventually croaked out. Casey just nodded solemnly along with him. “I need to find out who sent it. I need to find out who decided that it was a good idea to send a nuke into Manhattan.”

He hadn’t flown a plane full of nuclear weapon into the arctic only to watch as someone else tried to use a similar weapon to destroy a city as a counter measure whenever they felt like it.

“We’ll find out. We can find out, boss.”

He knew they would. The question was what he was going to do when he found out who had done it.

-

It was a lot easier than he had expected it to be. When Tony had taught him a few rudimentary hacking skills, the man had used the SHIELD database as his template.

Since there wasn’t an internet connection in Casey’s apartment they had moved to a small café that offered free wireless internet to its customers. They had managed to snag a loveseat when they had arrived earlier in the day and hadn’t really moved from their seats.

Casey had one of her legs tucked under her as she flipped through several different newspapers that all had articles on the attack on New York. Each article had its own distinct tone. Some of them were praising the group of heroes that had come out to fight the aliens, dubbing them the Avengers. Others were blaming their presence for the fact that New York had been attacked in the first place. One of the newspapers had a large picture of a heavy set senator with the quote **“I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. The Iron Man armor must be taken out of the hands of Tony Stark!”**

Steve had been happy that they had been able to find the shop where he had bought a laptop with an untraceable IP address. From what he understood, this meant that SHIELD wouldn’t be able to trace his exact location. He waited for the page to load on the screen, reaching up to scratch at the stubble on his jaw. He wasn’t exactly sure if he could actually warrant his facial hair as stubble anymore, since it had become long enough that he would have to start considering it a beard. Casey had laughed at him when she realized that even though he had blonde hair, his facial hair was a mixture of light blonde, dark blonde and red.

He shifted in his seat, holding the laptop up for a moment to let the hot air blowing out of it release into the air instead of into his pants. The moment that the SHIELD database fully loaded in his screen made him happy for the eidetic memory that had come along with the serum. The past few months had been spent wallowing in himself as he cursed the serum for keeping him alive, so it was a good feeling to be happy about it, and in addition about himself as well.

There was no doubt in his mind that SHIELD was a complete mess right about now, dealing with the aftermath of the attack. Steve had to think for a moment as he searched through his memories. It took only a minute before he remembered looking over one of the main crewmembers shoulders who had always been present on the flight deck of the Helicarrier.

He typed in a username and the password, hoping to himself that it hadn’t been changed in the time that he had been gone. A triumphant hiss escaped from his lips as it worked and started loading up the database.

The details and different options weren’t as extensive as the ones that he had seen when Tony had hacked into SHIELD to show off his skills, but he guessed that Tony had just been able to hack into the database access of someone with a higher security clearance.

The database included many different things, ranging from announcements, a private email and a search option.

Steve settled back in the comfy cushions of the couch as he pulled the laptop back onto his lap so he could start exploring.

It took a good hour and 19 minutes of searching, but he finally found some important information. A report had been submitted and sent to the members of the organization the day before the attack on New York had happened. A SHIELD facility had been broken into by an entity that was identified as ‘Loki, Norse god of Chaos’. As a result he had stolen an artifact called the Tesseract and many personnel had been brainwashed, including Erik Selvig, an astrophysicist and a high profile agent with the code name Hawkeye.

Steve paused for a moment, ceasing in scrolling down the rest of the document. The name Hawkeye was ringing a bell in his mind. He was pretty sure that he had heard the name once before when he had been introduced to Black Widow, the alias of Natasha Romanoff. He hummed under his breath when he remembered that Hawkeye was also known as Clint Barton, as a skilled sharpshooter that had an affinity with the bow and arrow.

He continued scrolling down and stopped once more when he saw a picture of the Tesseract. It wasn’t what they had called it back during the Second World War, but he was certain that it was the Cube. The Cube that the Red Skull had used to create his weapons and the same one that had disintegrated the Skull when he had touched it. Steve was certain that it had burned a hole through the floor of the plane and plummeted out of the air.

With a soft sigh, he ran his hands over his face. How had SHIELD gotten their hands on the Cube? Why would they keep it for themselves when there was a detailed history on what its power was capable of? They should have just left it in the ocean where they had undoubtedly found it.

As these questions rang through his mind, a bitter taste formed in the back of his throat. The Red Skull had used the power of the Cube to create weapons, with a very big success. Surely SHIELD hadn’t thought that they would be able to replicate, or Heaven forbid, better the weapons that HYDRA had used?

Steve quickly exited out of the document as he decided to read a more recent report. It was a quick write up on the most important occurrences that had gone on during the attack. He frowned when he read that Agent Coulson’s status had changed from active to deceased. The man had been around quite often when he had still been in SHIELD, always following Steve and looking up to him as a devoted puppy would to its owner.

He quickly chalked it up as a casualty of war.

One part of the report caught his eye. Hawkeye had been an integral part in the attack on the Helicarrier, but had managed to escape by stealing one of the quinjets that had been on deck. The quinjet had been traced to where it had landed in New Jersey, but no trace of Hawkeye had been found.

Only a few minutes before he had read that Erik Selvig had snapped out of his brainwashing by cognitive recalibration, or in layman’s terms – Black Widow had given him a swift knock in the head.

One would think that a trained agent such as Hawkeye would make his way back to SHIELD as soon as the same had happened to him. There was no further note on whether the other agents that had been brainwashed had reverted back to themselves when the Tesseract had been disabled and Loki had been taken into custody by his brother, Thor, Norse god of thunder.

(Steve vaguely wondered what his life was coming to when he just accepted that Norse gods apparently existed and used alien armies to try and take over the Earth without as much as a confused blink.)

Was it actually possible that Hawkeye was still trapped under the influence of the Cube, with no way of knowing how to free himself from Loki’s compulsion?

It was a farfetched theory, but why else would the agent not have returned to SHIELD?

Steve pushed that thought aside as he continued on with his research. By the time that he was able to sift through the rest of the documents that were available to him, Casey had gotten up three times, once coming back with a sickeningly sweet cup of coffee for him.

She just shrugged with a grin on her face when he sent her a questioning look.

He would congratulate himself on his self-restraint later when he came across a report that had been submitted during the time that he had spent scouring through the SHIELD database.

An organization called the World Security Council, which function as an oversight for SHIELD, had been the ones to decide to send the nuclear weapon into New York. These were the people responsible for the near death of millions of Americans and the heroes who had been on ground zero to stop the invasion. These were the people who had nearly caused the death of Tony Stark and they were in direct affiliation with SHIELD. It seemed that their decision about New York hadn’t been the only decision that they had made for SHIELD.

Steve snapped the laptop shut with more force than he should have, but he needed to get out of the café as soon as possible before he hurt someone. He heard Casey let out a surprised gasp as she gathered her things together and hurried after him.

Casey was only barely able to keep up with him as Steve walked into the alley behind the café. “Steve? What’s wrong? What did you find out?”

She yelped in surprised as he screamed in frustration and kicked a dumpster, sending it backwards into the wall and leaving behind an indent.

He shook his head as he tried to clear his mind, before he leaned against the brick wall of the building and slid down so he was sitting down on the ground. In front of him, Casey was hovering a short distance away, obviously not knowing if it would be a good idea to approach him.

It took him 5 minutes, 31 seconds and twenty-six deep breaths before he could finally speak. “A so called World Security Council was the one who sent the nuke to New York. They overrode Director Fury by doing so, but they work together more often than not. SHIELD was remaking weapons using an object that I thought I had left in the past. I have no doubt in my mind that there were more than enough other instances where they worked together on similar things.”

Steve knew now that SHIELD had been created after the war by Colonel Phillips, Howard and Peggy. Had it been their intentions for the organization that they had created to better the world to become so twisted in its morals? Surely not. He still recalled Peggy’s fire and stubbornness to stand up against anything that she disapproved of like he had seen her only a few days before. The so-called compromises that SHIELD and Fury were making were all in order to keep the security of the world, but Steve wasn’t certain about anything anymore.

What was real? What was right? The world now was colored in so many different shades of grey that he wasn’t ever sure what he was looking at. Back during the war it had been simple enough to discern the differences between what was right and what was wrong. How was it that he found it impossible to do now in a world that was a direct outcome of what he and many others had done back then?

“What are we going to do, Steve?” Casey tentatively asked.

He looked up at her, fierce determination curling in his gut. “We’re going to take them all down and we’re going to need someone who knows the organization from the inside.”

-

It was a disappointing sight to see his beautiful bike sitting in the bed of a pickup truck.

Casey had not so helpfully pointed out to him that not only was there not a passenger’s seat for her to ride along with him, but there certainly would not be enough room at all for three people.

Steve had tried to argue with her on the fact that he didn’t want her to come along with him. He really had. Casey was just too stubborn for her own good. One day she had left the apartment without so much as a word to him and a few hours later she had come back with the pickup truck. Which she had driven over much to Steve’s displeasure.

When he asked her how she had gotten ahold of it Casey had simply patted his chest and made a snide comment about her illicit non-law abiding contacts.

After that he hadn’t been able to talk her out of going along with him. Eventually he had just resigned himself to the fact that he wasn’t going to be rid of her any time soon. Steve also ignored the fact that his insides warmed up in happiness about it.

They were packing their belongings that they wanted to bring with them on their mission. Casey had only packed her clothing and a few other items that she wanted to hold onto, stating that most of the things in the apartment were just items that she had picked up off of the street.

“I can’t believe you still have this!”

Steve turned around at the surprised tone in Casey’s voice.

The gun that he had taken from one of the goons the night that he had met Casey was gleaming in her hands. He immediately walked over to pull it out of her hands. She let out a disappointed whine as he tucked it into the back of his pants.

“This is a sign! C’mon boss! You gotta let me have it now.”

He shook his head at her, turning back to his saddle bag to close it up. “I thought that I already made myself clear on the situation with you and weapons.”

Casey slung her duffle bag over her shoulders as she walked back over towards him. All he had to do was twist her hips to keep her from reaching out for the weapon once more. “Don’t tell me that you aren’t going to use it eventually! We’re going on a quest to take down a spy organization. You’re going to have to teach me how I can help you.”

“This is serious.” His voice dropped and he stared her down. “We’re not doing this for shits and giggles.”

“I know this is serious. That’s why I want to know how to protect myself and you.” For all that she had been bounding around with unrepressed energy only moments before, Casey had become just as straight faced as he had.

He just shook his head at her as he grabbed his belongings and made his way out of the apartment. The truck that she had managed to get her hands on, fake plates connected to their fake IDs and all, was a dark brown, almost like a metallic shade of umber.

The way that Casey had explained it to him was that the pick-up had an extended cab with a long bed. Where she had managed to find such a large vehicle that fit the specifications of what they needed in such a short time was a mystery to him.

Casey eventually followed out after him, and they both tossed their bags in the backseats. She got into the passenger’s side seat as Steve went to the back to make sure that his bike was secured properly before he got into the truck beside her. The rumble of the engine was smooth as he started the truck. Beside him Casey was staring out of the window, looking up at the building that she had been calling home.

“Is there anything you need?” Steve asked her.

She simply shook her head, still not taking her eyes off of the building. “No. We can go.”

Within an hour they had left Chicago city limits. There was a long bout of silence between the two of them during that time. It was only after they had passed a sign that thanked them for visiting Chicago that Casey spoke up again.

“So do you even have an idea of where you would find a super spy, boss?”

“I’m not sure. The only thing that I can think of is that if I was left without directions, I would go back to the last place I had been where I had gotten my orders. Since we have no idea where agent Barton was during his time with Loki, there’s only one other place that I can think of where to go. We’ll figure out what to do otherwise afterwards.”

Casey seemed content with the answer as she reached over and turned the radio on without another word, after which she turned back towards the window to watch the scenery pass by.

It had been 827 hours and 39 minutes since he had left SHIELD and 2640 hours and 9 minutes since he had woken up from a seventy year slumber.

As he was now, driving into the unknown with a new companion at his side, Steve found that he was feeling a sense of ease for the first time in a very long time. Now he finally had a cause, a goal to work towards in this strange new century and he was going to do everything humanly, and perhaps inhumanly, possible to achieve that goal.

-

Driving to the other side of the country was a lot more relaxing than Steve had originally thought it to be. Since they were on a tight schedule to make it to Hawkeye before SHIELD was able to track him down, Steve had decided not to sleep and drive as much as he could.

It didn’t stop Casey from getting him to pull over every once in a while for a quick rest though. She told him something about it being good for him to not focus on the road and the ability to stretch his limbs.

If anything she was still oddly subdued in a way she had never been before, probably going hand in hand with the fact that she had left a city that she had been calling home for nearly her entire life. It was good to see her in a different environment than the one they had been exposed to in the city.

For the first time Steve also saw her without her beanie. Casey had worn it until about halfway through their trip before she had taken it off during one of their breaks. At the moment that she held it in her hands she had looked down at it in confusion. By the time they had gone back to the truck, Casey had shoved it into her hoodie pocket and Steve hadn’t seen it since.

In a way Steve was reminded of what travelling across the country with a woman was like. When he had been on bond tour he had constantly been surrounded by women. It was true that Casey wasn’t anything like the women he knew back in the 1940s, but there were still mannerisms that she had that made him want to smile at the memories.

The radio had been turned on about five hours into their journey and Casey was very picky about the music that they listened to. Often they would listen to a station for a few minutes before a song came on that she didn’t like and she would station surf until she came across a song that suited her mood. Steve would often get a piercing look whenever he reached over to try and change it himself, so he just let her have her fun.

At the very least Casey had taken off her shoes when she pushed her chair back as far as it could go so she could place her feet up on the dashboard.

“What? I want to get more comfortable. You obviously ain’t gonna let me crawl into the backseat while we’re driving and you probably would give me that disapproving look of yours if I laid down on the backseat as well, boss. Live with it.”

She smirked to herself every time that she reassumed the position after every stop and Steve didn’t say anything to her.

At one point she had rolled down the window while they were on a long stretch, they were going the long way to avoid any toll roads, and lit up a cigarette. Casey looked over at him as she placed it between her lips.

Steve sighed and held out his hand. “Give it here.”

“No! I ain’t been smoking much around you, but I really need one now. You’re just going to throw it out.” She scowled at him as she blew some smoke out of the corner of her mouth.

“I’m not going to throw it out.”

Casey made sure to take another pull of the cigarette before she begrudgingly handed it over, obviously not trusting his word.

The look on her face when he put it between his lips to take a pull himself made him sad that he wasn’t able to take a picture and keep that with him forever. He looked over at her as he leaned his left elbow on the door beside him, the cigarette held between his fingers.

“What’s that look for? Back in my day doctors believed that smoking would help alleviate asthma, plus everyone smoked in the army. I’ve got to say that these are a lot better than the Lucky Strike ones we got sent when we were overseas.”

The confused look on Casey’s face didn’t go away until he reached over to change the radio station. She slapped his hand away, mumbling something about keeping both hands on the wheel.

Steve couldn’t help but chuckle under his breath at that.

After a while Casey had gotten over her shock and had lit up another cigarette for herself. She had gone into the next gas station while he had been filling up the truck with petrol and had returned with two new packets of cigarettes. She had walked up to him, shoved a box into the breast pocket of his shirt and gotten back into the truck.

He actually laughed out loud when he grabbed them and saw that they were Lucky Strike cigarettes.

The sun was only just starting to rise again after a long night’s drive and they were crossing the Utah border into Nevada. If the route that Casey had planned out was clear, it would take another 3 hours and give or take 30 minutes before they made it out to the Joint Dark Energy Mission Facility in the Mojave Desert.

The facility was the one where the Tesseract had been housed before Loki had taken it from SHIELD. It would also have been one of the last places where Hawkeye had been. With Loki now gone from Earth, Steve had no doubt that Hawkeye would be lost without receiving orders from his master, as it were. If he were confused and disoriented, he would go back to the location where he knew that the person he had received his orders from would have an entrance into their realm.

Now he was just hoping that Hawkeye would have the same instincts.

Casey stirred just before they drove into Las Vegas. They quickly went through a fast food drive through to get some breakfast before Steve directed them out of the city.

Casey had been silently sipping on her orange juice before she finally spoke up. “So what’s the plan exactly?”

“We’re going to convince Hawkeye to come with us.”

“And how exactly are you planning on doing that? It ain’t like we can really give him much of a reason to join us. How did you say we were going to break this brainwashing on him again?”

Steve’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles going white. “We aren’t.”

Casey’s head snapped over to him. “What do you mean? Wouldn’t doing that just give him even more reason to follow us?”

“No. Hawkeye is loyal to a fault to SHIELD. If we break whatever hold Loki or the Tesseract or whatever was controlling him, we can’t guarantee that he won’t just try to bring me in.” He snapped.

“So how will not breaking the brainwashing make a difference?”

“Right now we’re assuming that he’s an empty husk without a directive. He’ll wander around until he gets an order. The man is not in control of himself, or otherwise he would have reported back in already.”

“But what if he is, boss? What if he’s stuck inside his head, but just ain’t able to control his body? Even if he does come along with us, what will happen if he does get a knock on his head and he realizes what’s been going on?”

“This isn’t a goddamned discussion!” Steve shouted out as he slammed a hand on the steering wheel. He saw that Casey physically recoiled, pressing herself against the door behind her. “Fuck, I’m sorry.” He muttered.

The tension on Casey’s shoulders didn’t lessen as she woodenly nodded her head. Her eyes were still trained on him, even as he redirected his gaze on the road ahead of them. The only time that she moved was once to turn up the radio, as if to drown out the dreadful silence between them.

Unfortunately the tension between them hadn’t dissipated when Steve turned into an unmarked road that would lead to the sinkhole that had once been the facility. He had no doubt that SHIELD was still monitoring the area. They would have to go in and out as swiftly as was possible to avoid detection.

The sun was glaring down on them as Steve rolled the truck to a stop just outside the perimeter of the facility.

There wasn’t a lot left. There were a few access roads still left intact and some warehouses that would have been scattered around the main building. There was a large gaping hole in the center of the grounds now. He got out of the truck, slinging the portfolio over his back and pocketing the handgun just in case.

Steve looked over to where Casey was staring out of the passenger’s seat window. “You’re going to stay here. If I don’t come back in two hours or if you see any activity that might seem like SHIELD or authority presence, then I want you to leave without me.”

“I ain’t just gonna leave you here, Steve.” The words still seemed dull even if she was arguing with him.

“Yes, you are. If you want I’ll agree to meet you in that little town we passed through last. If I don’t come in three days then I want you gone. Do you understand me?” He laid out to her.

She mumbled something, but he didn’t catch what she said. “I asked you if I was understood.”

“Fine!” Casey dug into her pocket and pulled out a cigarette. “Don’t go ordering me around like I’m a soldier. I’ll do it. Now go.”

He sighed as she started to close herself off to him again, crawling into the backseat so she could rummage through her duffel bag. Steve should have just left. If there really was surveillance in the area, then they would have already noticed them arriving. “If it means anything, I really am sorry for earlier.”

Casey didn’t make a move to show that she had heard him at all, so Steve merely turned around and started off towards the remains of the facility in a brisk pace.

The grounds were a lot larger than he had expected them to be. There were dozens of satellites surrounding the hole of where the main building had been along with a dozen warehouses and smaller buildings. If Hawkeye had indeed made his way to this facility, then there were a multitude of areas that he would be able to hole himself up in as he waited.

The satellites were widely spread apart, but it was easy to check to make sure that no one was hiding in or around them. Even then, it took Steve just over an hour to check over all of them.

His increased stamina was a blessing in this situation. Steve wasn’t tired by the time he had made it to the first warehouse and he was hardly sweating.

The warehouse was large, with a lot of places to hide, including large beams holding up the ceiling with nooks that would be perfect for hiding and being able to keep an eye on surroundings. Steve remembered that the habit of holing up in high places was a reason why Hawkeye had gotten his codename. He was sure that Hawkeye would spot him before he even got a glimpse of the agent.

Above him, the sun was baring down on his bare head as he finally exited the last standing building on the premises. Steve reached up to shield his eyes as he looked around one last time. He had been to every single hiding place that he could think of, but he hadn’t found a single sign of the presence of Hawkeye, or anyone else for that matter.

His stomach dropped when he realized that his instincts had been wrong. It wasn’t often that that happened to him. Nonetheless, it seemed that Hawkeye hadn’t gone back to this facility. That meant that he could be anywhere, which didn’t just include the continental United States.

Steve was beginning to think that he wasn’t going to get his hands on the brainwashed SHIELD agent. He was disappointed as he started back towards where he had parked so he could rejoin Casey. Being able to get a hold of Hawkeye was an integral part in his plan to take SHIELD down. With the man’s aid they would have been able to get inside information about the organization. It would have made his job a lot easier.

It wasn’t necessarily that Steve wasn’t up for the challenge otherwise, but it made him feel giddy with the thought that he would utilize a SHIELD agent to take the organization down.

When he walked passed the warehouse closest to the satellites, a cluster of wrens suddenly flew out from underneath one of the overhanging beams. They chirped loudly as they flew over his head and off into the desert.

Steve stood in his tracks, looking around his surroundings to make sure that he hadn’t missed anything. Subconsciously he reached back to grab the zipper of the portfolio, ready to pull out his shield if need be.

It was amazing how even when Steve was on guard, the man managed to sneak up behind him.

“What are you doing here?”

Steve was able to suppress his surprise and forced himself to turn around slowly. His hands cautiously came up when he saw the bow that was pointed at his face. Hawkeye looked like he had seen better days. He was covered in a layer of sand with a few scrapes and bruises. His clothing was torn and dirty. All of this made the unreal bright blue glow that so resembled the Cube stand out even more.

His insides flipped in happiness at the sight of Hawkeye in front of him. “I’m here for you.” He stepped to the side to see what the man in front of him would do, the corner of his mouth curling as Hawkeye moved along with him, his arm pulled back as he held the string of his bow taunt, ready to shoot off his arrow at the slightest hint of a wrong move.

Hawkeye’s face remained impassive for the majority of the time. His bright, glowing eyes didn’t leave Steve for even a second. In fact, Steve was pretty certain that the man hadn’t even blinked once during their encounter so far.

It didn’t seem like Hawkeye was going to acknowledge him, so Steve kept on talking. “I came here for you. I’ve been looking for you because I need help. I need your help specifically.”

He wasn’t quite sure, but Steve thought that it looked like Hawkeye seemed to perk up at the sound of the idea. As much as it unnerved Steve to see that specific shade of blue glowing at him even though he had thought that he would be rid of it forever, he didn’t let that stop him.

“We met before, once. My name is Steve Rogers, but you might know me as Captain America.” The name sent his stomach roiling in displeasure. “I’m sure you could remember if you tried.”

Steve smiled over at Hawkeye, hoping that it would aid the man in letting his guard down so Steve could convince him to come along with him.

It seemed that just that was going to happen when Hawkeye suddenly tensed and started to turn around, just in time for him for him to shoot off an arrow, but not fast enough to duckaway from a metal bar to the side of the head.

Steve hadn’t noticed her at all. He was seriously going to have to start paying more attention to his surroundings when he realized that it was Casey who had swung at Hawkeye, who crumpled to the ground.

He had no control over his body as he stomped over to her, grabbing onto her hoodie as he shook her. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Casey dropped the metal bar on the ground, her hands coming up to hold onto his wrists. “Cognitive recalibration or whatever you call it!”

“I specifically told you not to interfere with my plan!” Steve shook her more as he pulled her towards him and lifting her feet up off the ground.

“It’s a good thing that I came after you! Not only were you gone for over two hours, but you saw it didn’t you?”

Steve narrowed his eyes down at her unwavering brown ones. “What?”

“He missed! You told me all about Hawkeye and the one thing that you mentioned is that he ain’t ever missed a shot before! A skilled marksman like him would never have missed a shot, especially if it was so close. It’s just a matter of letting the string go!” Casey argued as she planted her shoes on his knees, leaving behind sand stains as she tried to push herself away.

His head immediately snapped up. She was right. She couldn’t have been more than five feet away when Hawkeye had turned around. It was probably the easiest shot that the man could have taken. A running target right in front of him. Blue eyes darted around frantically in search of the arrow.

He found it embedded in the siding of the building, which was not only much further away from where Casey had been, but also several feet off to the side. Steve was shocked enough to let Casey go, not saying a word as she tumbled to the ground with a loud grunt.

Casey had been right. Hawkeye would never miss a shot like that, not unless he had been aiming to miss his mark. Something inside of the man had kept him from shooting Casey even when she had been a threat. But why?

A groan came from behind him and he turned around. Casey had crawled over to where Barton had fallen on the ground, already kneeling next to him with her hand on his shoulder as she helped him sit back up.

Steve moved to kneel down next to her as Barton reached up to cup the side of his head where he had been hit. His eyes were shut for what seemed like forever, but when he opened them they were still glowing that unrelenting blue.

“It didn’t work.” Casey’s words came out in a soft breath, obviously disappointed.

“What didn’t work?” Hawkeye asked, face still impassive as he pulled his hand away.

Steve was the one that answered. “The mind control that was placed on you was supposed to go away with cognitive recalibration, but it’s still there. It must be because the Tesseract isn’t on Earth anymore. If it’s power is so strong that it can still hold you while it’s off planet then a simple knock to the head won’t be enough to get rid of it.” He hadn’t realized the implications until he said the words out loud.

“Fuck. I guess that both of us were right, boss.” Casey looked over at him with a quirk of the corner of her mouth, reaching over to punch him in the shoulder.

Now he was realizing that he had gone overboard. Steve hadn’t been treating Casey the way that she should have been treated, with respect. He should have listened to her in the car and he shouldn’t have lost his cool with her only minutes ago. He opened his mouth to apologize to her again, but she simply shook her head at him as she stood up along with Barton.

The man bent down so he could picked up the bow that had fallen from his grasp before he walked to the building to pry his arrow from the siding. He didn’t bother brushing off his sand covered clothing as he rejoined them, obviously waiting for them to speak.

“If you come with us, we can figure out a way to help you get rid of whatever has a hold on you. Of course, our services ain’t for free. You must know that.” Casey was patting down her clothing in an effort to get all of the sand off of her.

Hawkeye was silent, his unnaturally glowing blue eyes looking down at Casey before moving towards Steve. He met the gaze head on. He didn’t want to give an inch. They needed Hawkeye’s help. It would make their job a lot easier.

“Alright.” The man simply said.

Casey pumped her hand next to her body in excitement, hissing happily under her breath. She then turned around and started off towards the direction in which they had parked the truck.

Hawkeye diligently followed after her, the both of them leaving Steve behind in his stupor.

This was certainly not the way that he had been expecting things to go. If anything, Casey’s involvement might have made everything easier. He shook his head in amusement as he started after them.

-

Casey had loudly declared that they were going to actually sleep in beds for the night and Steve couldn’t find it in himself to deny her that request.

They drove back towards Las Vegas, stopping in one of the smaller towns on the outskirts of the city. Steve had spotted an old motel off the side of the road and he paid the clerk in cash.

The room was old and obviously hadn’t been refurbished in a few decades, but it would settle for the night. There were two beds and a pull out couch and he had already been the one to volunteer sleeping on it for the night.

Casey had quickly jumped in the shower to wash off the sand from the desert and whatever had accumulated in the long day of travelling. She had pushed Steve into the small bathroom immediately after.

He had to hunch down a little to be able to fit underneath the showerhead, but he couldn’t complain against the feeling of hot water running over his body.

When he came out Casey had ushered Hawkeye into the bathroom as well with the instruction to stay in for a long time. The man hadn’t said anything since they had picked him up. It didn’t seem like he was displaying any emotion either, since his face had been held in the same impassive expression the entire time.

Steve was towel drying his hair when Casey shut the bathroom door behind her. She sighed and pushed her long, wet hair over her shoulder. He looked up at her as he wrapped the towel around his neck.

“I’m sorry.”

Casey’s eyes were immediately trained on him. “Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry.” Steve repeated. “For losing my cool in the truck and again out there. I should’ve listen to you.”

“You should have! That was me calling you out on your bullshit. Ain’t gonna tell me that you forgot that I promised I would do that.” She pointed out, walking over to him and tugging the towel away from his neck.

He let out a sigh as he leaned his head back against the couch, brushing his hair out of his face. It had grown a lot since he had left SHIELD.

(857 hours and 28 minutes, his mind reminded him.)

Casey plopped down on the couch beside him, taking her regular position with her back against the arm of the couch and her feet tucked up under her. “You should do something about your hair. Not only is it very outdated, but the blonde is very distinctive, even if the beard offsets it.”

She was right, Steve decided. It was good and well to walk around with a fake ID and try his best to keep away from any kind of camera, but that would only get him so far. “What do you suggest?”

“We could dye your hair. Get me an electric hair trimmer and I’m sure I can do something that doesn’t look too horrible.” She was running her fingers through her own hair now, as if she was contemplating on it as well.

Steve got up, slipping on his shoes so he could walk over to the general store across the street.

The store was stoked well enough for his needs. With some help he was directed over to a section that held hair products and he painstakingly looked through the different one that they offered. There were only a few options for men and he had eventually grabbed one for light- to medium-brown hair. There were a few different types of electric hair clippers and he had just grabbed the one in the middle to save himself the hassle. Along with that he walked through a few other aisles grabbing some other items before he grabbed some sandwiches, drinks and snacks for on the road.

They hadn’t exactly decided where they wanted to go, but it was always a good idea to stay well stoked.

When he got back to the room Hawkeye had finished his shower. The man was sitting on one of the beds in a t-shirt and sweatpants that were Steve’s, watching some show on the television. They were going to have to go out and get him some clothing as well.

Casey came up to him and took the bags from him. She placed the ones with the food and drink aside, but not before passing a sandwich and a bottle of water to Barton who hadn’t eaten in who knew how long. After that she herded Steve into the bathroom to take care of his hair.

The smell of hair dye was atrocious and he curled up his lip in disgust as Casey systematically applied it to his hair.

There was a part of him that was sad that they had to do this.

Every time he looked in the mirror he was already doubting who he was. Would this make that fact even starker?

Luckily for him, the hair dye only had to stay in for fifteen minutes before he could wash it out. Casey made him sit in the bathtub as she sat on the rim behind him. Brown hair fluttered down to the surface of the porcelain tub as the cutters hummed obnoxiously in his ears. She switched out different lengths a few times and looked over it several times before she announced that she was done.

Casey stayed sitting on the back rim of the tub as Steve got up, shaking his head and brushing off his shirt in an attempt to get all of the hair off of him. He would probably have to take another shower just to get rid of all the small hairs.

He walked over so he was standing in front of the mirror and he let out a long sigh. The sides of his hair were still shorter than the top, but overall it was shorter than it had been in a long time. The hair on top of his head was just long enough that it was standing on end in every which way.

It was different, especially with the fact that his hair was brown of all things, but it was a good different. It almost felt like a new start to him.

Casey took off her hoodie, apparently deciding that it wasn’t worth it to try to brush off the hair that had fallen on her. She stood next to him, patting his shoulder. “You look good. Now all you need to do is update your wardrobe and you’ll look like you actually fit in this era. When did you last go shopping for clothing anyways, boss?”

“2173 hours and 44 minutes ago.” Steve blurted out without thinking after a moment. Tony had promised to take him out to shop for clothing at one point, but they never went. He had gone out into New York with an escorting agent and he had reached for what was familiar to him.

“Wow.” Casey blinked up at him. “That’s super specific. I ain’t even gonna ask how you can be that specific.”

“The numbers ring through my head.” Steve found himself telling her.

She paused for a moment, her lips pursing slightly as she seemed to pull her thoughts together. “So if I ask you how long it’s been since we left Chicago you’d say?”

He closed his eyes for a moment, only taking a few seconds to visualize the numbers. “31 hours and 11 minutes.”

Casey whistled under her breath as she patted his shoulder once more before turning to pack up the electric clipper. “Handy that.”

It wasn’t really. It was just a constant reminder of how time was dragging on him.

That night he managed to sleep for a few hours. It had been an hour or two sporadically, but he had still managed to sleep. Eventually he just gave up and he sat up on the couch. His eye caught the portfolio that held his shield and he reached over to grab it. He placed it on his lap and opened up the flap halfway.

The red, white and blue with the single star in the middle ring glared mockingly up at him. Steve looked over at one of the bags containing items that he had purchased only hours earlier. At the time he hadn’t realized why he had gotten them, but he knew now.

He gathered the bag and moved outside so he wouldn’t disturb the others.

Steve sat down in an old lawn chair next to the door and pulled out turpentine and some dish rags. It was early enough that nobody would be walking around, so he pulled the shield out without worry. He drenched one of the clothes in the turpentine. His hand hovered over the shining colors of the shield, but he eventually went to work. It took quite a bit of effort to get the paint off, but with a little determination on his end it started coming along quite nicely.

He was just starting on getting rid of the blue ring when the door next to him opened. He looked up and was surprised to see that Hawkeye was standing next to him. The man looked at him before his glowing eyes moved down to the shield on Steve’s lap.

“I can’t carry around a symbol that I no longer believe in.”

Steve wasn’t sure why he felt the need to explain his actions, but his words were met with silence either way. Hawkeye didn’t say anything and he didn’t move from the spot where he was leaning against the door either.

Eventually Steve turned back to what he was working on and before long the shield was completely bare in a way that it hadn’t been since the first time he had seen it.

If Casey had noticed the lack of colors on the shield when he and Hawkeye reentered the room, she didn’t say anything.

-

As silent as Barton was, it was comforting to have him around.

The agent didn’t speak unless spoken to, and even then he didn’t say much. He kept his sentences short and to the point as much as possible.

Steve remembered that Barton actually had quite the mouth on him, so it seemed that he was just unable to express himself in the usual way.

They had decided to drive up north this time. Casey had mentioned the fact that she had always wanted to see the mountains and Hawkeye had just added that it was a good place to keep their heads down when he had been asked for his opinion.

It was nice to have another person in the car. Steve had talked with Casey on their way to the Mojave Desert, but it seemed that she liked talking to someone without needing to worry about being interrupted more.

She sat in the back with Hawkeye when they got in the car to leave Nevada and had even delegated control over the radio to Steve.

The ideal one-sided chatting in the background along with the music and the simple sound of driving was a nice lull.

Now that they weren’t restricted by a time sensitive mission they often stayed the night at motels along the way.

One day Steve had gotten out of the shower to find a note that Casey had taken Barton and gone into the pub that was situated next to the motel. He wandered over to find her and Barton swindling people for money at pool tables.

Barton had taken to wearing sunglasses after Casey had suggested them to him to cover up the unnatural blue glow of his eyes; this made him even more mysterious and stoic than he usually was.

Casey would start out playing against a bunch of men who obviously only indulged her to leer at her as she failed horribly at the game and made a big fuss about it. When she was losing terribly she asked the men if they wouldn’t mind if her ‘cousin’ could play as well, since they were going to lose either way.

It was almost as if the men either believed that Barton was blind, with him wearing sunglasses inside or that they were obviously going to win with the odds stacked so heavily in their favor. Nonetheless, it always ended with Barton winning the games and Casey getting the men to cough up some cash.

One night she had made a comment about how they were constantly using Steve’s money and that she felt the need to contribute. The money that she and Barton swindled, either by conning people in pool or cards games or slipping wallets out of pockets with a quick flick of the wrist, was used for gas and food.

It was easy to fall in a routine after that.

Casey and Barton would go out to get some cash and Steve would more often than not stay behind if they had access to wireless internet so he could check up on coming and goings in SHIELD.

Once in a while Barton loomed over his shoulder, looking at the SHIELD database impassively as Steve scrolled through everything. He was assuming that his unauthorized presence in the system hadn’t been detected yet, or the login that he was using would have been deleted already.

Either that, or SHIELD was trying to find a way to trace him.

Steve always made sure that he wasn’t connected to the database for too long as a precaution.

Casey was always having them pull over in places that she was interested in. Using some of the stolen money, she had purchased a digital camera for herself and was always taking pictures of the places that she liked the most.

This was around the same time that Steve finally found it in himself to start drawing again.

He had been sitting on the tailgate of the truck bed, having taken his bike out for a well-deserved spin out in the countryside, watching Casey and Hawkeye sitting on a rock by a stream when his fingers started to itch.

They had itched when he had been in Chicago. Steve had felt the need to draw back then, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to connect pencil to paper. It was this peaceful scene that he had finally gotten to sooth the itch.

After that it was a lot easier to draw. His sketchbook was filled with flowers, landscapes, sketches and a few portraits here and there.

(He still couldn’t find himself able to draw anyone from the past, those days that he tried, Steve had always woken up in the middle of the night, a scream forcing its way out of him. The others had learned not to approach or follow him if he went off during those nights.)

After everything that they had been through, Steve should have known that everything was going too smoothly.

-

He never found out exactly what they were doing there, but he and the others had been making their way back to the truck after a day of exploring Salem, Oregon when Barton suddenly brushed his fingers along the inside of Steve’s wrist.

Steve was surprised because Barton never initiated physical contact, but he immediately understood when he saw the flat line of the man’s mouth, which meant that he was in Hawkeye mode.

A few seconds of looking around made Steve realize that they were being followed. It was very discreet and he wasn’t surprised to find that he hadn’t picked up on it at all.

A couple was walking across the street from them, pressed closely as they talked. Steve noticed that the woman was holding a finger to her ear as she spoke. Normally he would write this off as a quirk, but he knew that there was a thing such as communicators that could be placed in someone’s ear to keep in contact with someone else.

If Hawkeye hadn’t silently shown his suspicions to Steve, then he never would have noticed himself. He knew that spies had gotten a lot better since the War, but this was on such an unknown high level to him.

He immediately moved closer to Casey as Hawkeye walked ahead of them and turned into a small side road. Casey looked up at him in confusion, but he couldn’t do anything but shake his head minutely.

When they reached the end of the road the man was standing in front of them, a handgun held securely in his hands. “Stay calm and no one will get hurt.”

The women was standing behind them in a similar position. Steve held onto Casey’s arm, holding her close so he would be ready to protect her if need be.

“Agent Barton, we have been authorized to take you in using any means necessary. Please remove any weapons that you might have on your person and slowly walk towards me with your hands raised.”

It was then that Steve realized that they hadn’t recognized him. They had no idea who he was if they were only focused on Hawkeye.

Barton was as silent as ever, his face still unreadable with his blank expression and the glasses that were covering his glasses. He didn’t make a move as the man ordered him to stand down; he didn’t even acknowledge the order.

“I repeat, Agent Barton, remove any weapons that you might have on your person and slowly walk towards me with your hands raised.”

The sudden coiling of Hawkeye’s muscles was enough of a warning for Steve to shove Casey towards a dumpster as the man lunged forward to the agent standing in front of him. The dull popping sound of a bullet being fired through a silencer echoed through Steve’s ears as he rushed towards the woman to disarm her.

He had enough trust in Hawkeye to know that the man would be able to handle himself.

The woman seemed to realize that her gun wouldn’t be useful in her situation as she instantly changed her stance as Steve charged over to her. Her arm came up in a block as he reeled back his arm to punch her before she planted her heeled foot into his stomach. With a quick swipe he was able to disarm her, the gun clattering to the ground as they both shifted to a fighting stance.

With the way that she was moving was a clear indication that she had been trained well. Steve was no slouch when it came to hand to hand fighting, but she was able to meet him blow to blow, using her smaller size to her advantage to step into his attacks to slip into his defenses.

She pulled a knife out of her boot and slashed at him with lightning speed. It was only thank to his enhanced maneuverability that he was able to avoid being cut too deeply by the knife. Two quick slashes were quickly followed up with a kick to the head that sent him stumbling back a step and he was about to reach up to use his arms to block the knife when another dull pop echoed through the air.

Hot, sticky blood splattered on Steve’s face. The woman stumbled, a hand coming up to touch the spurting wound at her neck. The knife clattered to the ground as she crumpled in on herself.

Looking up, Steve saw that Casey was standing next to the dumpster, the gun that the woman had dropped in her hands. Her mouth was open in surprise and her eyes were glued on the woman who convulsed a few times as the blood quickly pooled around her. She let out a gurgling sound before slackening completely and no longer moving.

Steve forced his legs to move. He closed the distance between him and Casey in a few steps before he gently wrapped his fingers around the gun, pointing it down to the ground.

“Casey, I need you to let go of the gun.” He instructed her in a soft voice.

“I shot her.” Casey let out with a huff of breath, her fingers easily unwrapping from the grip that she had on the weapon. “She’s dead.”

Steve flicked the weapon on safety before removing the cartridge. He was already running his shirt over the grip of the gun in an attempt to remove any evidence that Casey had held the weapon.

One quick look over his shoulder made him see that other agent crumpled on the ground as well, his neck at an odd angle. Hawkeye was going through his pockets as he tried to find something that would identify their assailants.

Steve left Casey where she was standing, knowing that she wasn’t going to do anything stupid. He placed the gun on the ground next to the woman’s body being careful to make sure that he didn’t step in the blood pool surrounding her. He didn’t have to check her closely to know that she was dead.

He wandered over to where Hawkeye had pulled out a lighter from the man’s pocket and was slowly moving it back and forth in the light.

There was a badge on the man’s chest with the SHIELD insignia on it. Steve gritted his teeth at the sight of it. Had the two agents tracked them or had it been pure coincidence that they had been at the same place at the same time?

“What are you looking at?” Hawkeye was moving the lighter back and forth with a keen interest that Steve hadn’t yet seen in the man.

He shifted so he was standing once more, this time holding the lighter up to the light above them. Hawkeye didn’t say another word as he handed the lighter over to Steve.

Steve took it, holding it up to the light as he started tilting it like he had seen Barton do. What he saw almost made him drop the lighter in shock. Held in a certain light Steve was able to see an insignia printed on it. It wasn’t obvious at all, expertly hidden from someone who wouldn’t know how to look at it, but he saw it.

What was a HYDRA insignia doing on the lighter of a SHIELD agent? His hand dropped down to his side as he looked down at the body of the man by his feet. “Is there anything else? Any other clue to how he is?”

“There’s nothing else. The ID he’s carrying is fake.” Barton replied, his tone flat.

Steve looked down at the lighter again, tossing it up and down a few times in his palm before he turned on his heel to throw it into the wall of the building next to him. A strange satisfaction went through him when it shattered on impact.

“Let’s get back to the truck. We need to leave, now.” Steve instructed.

Barton nodded and headed off into the direction that they had come from. Casey, who had still been staring down at the body of the woman, snapped out of her thoughts as she followed after him. Steve stayed behind for a minute before he quickly followed after them. It was dark and the weapons had both had silencers. If they were lucky, no one had heard them. They had to use this time to get away as fast as they could before someone stumbled upon them or the handlers of these people decided to show their faces.

The walk back to the truck and subsequent drive out of Salem was silent. Barton had taken the passenger’s seat for once, his bow on his lap as he peered out of the window to make sure that no one else was coming after them.

Steve hadn’t said a word to Casey when she had wrapped herself in her largest hoodie and laid down on the backseat.

It was 2 hours and 8 minutes into their getaway that Casey finally spoke up behind him.

“I’m glad that I shot her. I know that I ain’t supposed to be feeling this giddy and happy about it, but I can’t help it, boss.”

“It’s okay. You don’t gotta explain yourself to me, Casey.”

She huffed softly, the sound of the fabric of the hoodie rustling against the leather of the seats filling the silent car as she sat back up. “What a moment to lose that proper way of talking that you got going on, boss.”

“Say what you want, but this is hell of a good time to forget about something as silly as proper speakin’.”

Casey let out a soft chuckle as she leaned forward over the console, pressing a button on the radio to turn it on. She turned the volume so the music was nothing but a soft background noise before sliding back into the backseat.

Steve let out a loud sigh as he leaned his elbow against the door and ran his hand through his short hair. He was going to have to become even more vigilant than normal now. There was no telling how much information the two agents had been able to pass along.

-

It was two days that Steve noticed that something was off with Barton. The man was always silent, but it was never hard to get his attention.

At first he wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing. It often took a few tries to get the man’s attention. He didn’t respond to verbal cues as quickly as he did before and he always seemed to need a moment longer than usual to reply. Casey had even had to wave her hand in front of his face a few times to get Barton to realize that he was being talked to.

Steve thought that the man was simply hyper vigilant after what had happened to them in Salem- he was still trying to work through it himself- but it didn’t seem to be that.

Besides the slow reactions Steve and Casey sometimes had to repeat themselves before Barton seemed to understand what they were talking about. It was only when Steve caught a slight slur in Barton’s speech pattern that he realized that something else was the matter.

Casey seemed to notice it as well because she sat him down on a bench during one of their pit stops and stood in front of him with her hands on her hips.

“Look, I know that you ain’t in complete control of yourself right now, but I thought we all had a conversation about how you need to tell us when there’s something going on with you. Spill it, Barton.”

Barton was silent for a minute and it was hard for Steve to pick up on any signals from the man with his eyes hidden and his slack facial expression.

The man’s fingers twitched in his lap as he responded, his hands moving closer as he spoke. “There isn’t something going on with me.”

His speech was only barely slurred and he was speaking a little louder than usual.

Steve moved in next to Casey, looking down at Barton’s hands. He spoke more clearly and a little slower. “Are you sure?”

For the first time in 43 hours Barton responded like he normally did. “There is nothing wrong with me.”

A muscle in his neck twitched as he spoke and his hands moved together in his lap once again. Steve had to stop himself from tapping his foot on the ground. “I never said there was somethin’ wrong with you, we were asking what is going on.”

With another moment of silence Barton finally reached up towards his right ear. Something was held in his palm as he switched over to the other side. His hands were clenched tightly around whatever it was he was holding before his fingers slowly pulled back.

Steve was surprised by what he saw, and he knew that Casey was even more surprised by the sound that she made. He had no idea what they were exactly, but she seemed to know as she spoke up again.

“Ain’t they working? Are the batteries dead?” Casey followed Steve’s earlier example of articulating and taking time with her words.

Barton nodded as his fingers closed slightly again, as if he were trying to hide his impairment from the world. Steve had no idea that the archer was deaf. In his time men like that would never have been let into the army. He couldn’t help but wonder what Barton had to go through to get to where he was.

“May I?” He asked so he could take a look at the small devices. Steve waited for the barely there nod from Barton before he reached out and carefully took one of the hearing aids in his fingers.

It was a lot less delicate than he thought they would be. He guessed that these were probably specially made to be able to hold up with the rough activities that Hawkeye might encounter during any of his missions. They were the same color as his hair, so now Steve realized why he hadn’t spotted them before.

Casey was looking down at his hand as he examined it. “We need to find new batteries. Why don’t we head into town, bunker down and then you can go and get new ones?”

“Alright. Let’s get a move on then.” Steve handed back the hearing aid to Barton and waited for the man to reattach them before he headed towards the truck.

Finding batteries for hearing aids were a lot easier than he thought it would be. Casey had steered him to a large store called a Walmart and had led them to a section that had an entire row of batteries. It was good for them that Barton knew exactly which one were needed for him as well.

That night, in yet another stuffy motel, Casey left the room to go on an errand.

Barton was sitting on a chair next to the window, half hidden behind the awful mint-green curtains as he looked outside to survey the area. The bow was on the bedside table next to him; always in easy reach in case he would need to use it.

Steve was sitting on the bed as he used the laptop. This establishment had offered internet so he was taking full advantage of it in light of recent events.

But try as he might, Steve could find no bulletins at all pertaining the fact that Hawkeye had been spotted in Salem. The agents that had cornered them had obviously been in contact with someone before they had gone after them. Surely it would have been reported if Hawkeye had been spotted and two agents had been taken down by him?

It made no sense to have no report on the event at all. Hawkeye was high profile enough to warrant a nation-wide search. Steve had seen some reports that contained information about how a team had been sent out on the site in New Jersey where the Quinjet had been found to try and track him. If SHIELD knew that Barton was in the vicinity of Salem, then they would have already mobilized.

Steve could find nothing on the SHIELD database that mentioned anything about Barton’s most recent known whereabouts.

The unexpected insignia on the lighter came back to him in a flash. The male agent that Barton had taken down had had SHIELD identification on him, but was there a darker force hidden in SHIELD’s shadow?

It wasn’t possible.

He had watched with his own two eyes as Johann Schmidt was disintegrated. He knew from reports that he had read that the SSR had hunted down the last fractions of HYDRA after he had crashed the Valkyrie into the frozen waters.

HYDRA wasn’t supposed to be around anymore, so why had he seen the insignia in this day and time on a SHIELD agent of all things?

He was frustrated with himself that he hadn’t controlled his anger and kept the lighter. Now he was doubting what he had seen. But he wasn’t the only one that had seen it. Blue eyes trailed over to Barton, who was still staring out of the window with his glasses off and glowing eyes trained on every movement.

Barton had studied the insignia himself quite a few times to be certain before he had handed over the lighter to Steve.

This situation was getting crazier by the minute. Steve slammed the laptop shut and he ran his fingers over the warm lid of the machine in his lap.

Steve already thought that SHIELD was rotten to its core. It had become twisted and horrifically warped from what the organization was supposed to represent, but now he was stuck with the realization that something worse might even be brewing deep within the shadows.

The front door opened and Steve jerked his head up, already tensing and pushing the laptop away. He should have known that there wasn’t a threat when Barton didn’t move at all from his perch next to the window.

How silly of him. He was getting paranoid.

Casey didn’t even toe off her shoes as she jumped on the bed, narrowly missing Steve’s feet, and pulling a few books out of a bag.

“So first I was telling myself that what happened today ain’t never going to happen again. We got along fine because you can read lips, Barton, but if we get stuck in another situation like this and we ain’t anywhere close to each other we’re fucked.”

She handed one of the books to Steve. He looked down at it, raising a curious eyebrow when he saw that it was a handbook to learning American Sign Language.

Barton deigned to take his eyes away from the window as he looked at the book that Casey was placing on the bed. He looked down at one of the pages that she had opened up to before he turned his unsettling gaze to her. His hands came up and started making intricate motions.

Steve shouldn’t have been surprised to know that Barton already knew Sign Language. He obviously couldn’t just plain ask the man if he had been deaf his entire life or if he had been in an accident.

“Whoa! Slow down, man. I obviously ain’t gonna be able to follow what you’re doing. So you gotta teach us. We can learn together. Think of that as your new mission.” Casey said as she waved off Barton’s signs.

Despite knowing how smart Casey could be, Steve was surprised by her quick thinking. “This is good. We used to use hand signs to communicate when it wasn’t possible to talk.” He didn’t have to say their names for the memory to dig into him.

“Team building! Ain’t really going to be effective if we can’t mesh.” Casey looked down at the book, her right hand slowly forming some signs as she looked down at the alphabet. “I also gotta learn how to shoot a gun, properly.”

Steve sighed as he placed the book that she had given him next to the others. “Casey. We already talked about this. I’m not puttin’ a firearm in a minor’s hands.”

Casey glared up at him, like she had done every time before when they had had this conversation. “You can’t say that anymore, boss! I got lucky last time! Any further to the side and I would’ve shot you instead of that bitch.”

“I’ll teach you how to defend yourself, but you aren’t gettin’ a gun!”

“Goddammit!” Casey shoved off of the bed. Stalking over to the door so she could take her shoes off. “You’re fucking stupid to think that something like this ain’t gonna happen again! You’ve been lucky so far as well. How long do you think it’ll take before SHIELD gets a whiff of your or Barton’s position again?”

“We’re gonna be more careful from now on! We’ve been avoidin’ them just fine.” Steve argued right back.

“The way I understand it, they found us by pure coincidence. How many coincidences is it gonna take before you get your head out of your ass and realize that we can’t completely avoid this shit? Tell me, how long did you go after leaving before they found us?”

It had been almost six weeks since Steve had left New York and two days since Salem. “1048 hours and 38 minutes.”

“And what’s that counter at right now?”

“Excuse me?” He was confused by her enquiry.

Casey hopped a few times to get her balance as she unlaced her shoe. “A counter goes back down to zero when there’s been an incident, boss.”

“46 hours and 12 minutes.”

She tore off her hoodie, tossing it to the other bed and in the process completely messing up her hair. Casey let out an annoyed huff as she brushed it out of her face. It was obvious that she still wasn’t used to it being down instead of up hidden in her beanie. “Exactly. How much you wanna bet that in another thousand or so hours, we come across folks that don’t want us on the run?”

“She’s right.”

Both Steve and Casey stared at Barton in surprise. This was the first time since they had picked him up that he had spoken up by himself. The man grabbed his bow and ran his fingers over the string. “She doesn’t have to carry around a gun, but it would be beneficial that she know how to handle one properly.”

Casey’s mouth curled up in a triumphant smile at the man’s words.

Steve quickly pushed himself off of the bed and he brushed off Casey as she tried to question what he was doing as he quickly shoved his feet into his shoes and left the motel room.

He wiggled his feet as he walked to try and slip his shoes on properly. It would have been easier to just lean down for a few seconds, but he didn’t want to stop.

There was a part of him that knew that they were both right. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that being able to wield a weapon with the way they were on the run and the people coming after them was a good idea. It was a great idea, in fact.

He should have just left Chicago when he had the chance. There was no reason for him to have gone back to Casey’s after his bike was finished. Now he had dragged the girl into his mess. Not that she wasn’t in a mess before, but this was a lot more than drugs and swindling.

Steve stared down at his feet as he walked over the sidewalks of the town that they were in. Barton was right in pointing out that she at least had to know how to handle a weapon. There was nothing more dangerous than putting a gun in the hands of someone that had no idea how to handle it.

The part of him that knew they were right pointed out that Casey was already in too deep. Steve had already lost the chance to keep her out of his business. She had willingly gone with him even when he said that he was going to take down an international spy organization. She hadn’t even thought of the risks at first. She had had more than enough time to think it through after that. At any point before they had left Chicago, Casey could have decided not to help him, but she didn’t. In fact, she had argued with him so she could come along.

The only other person that Steve knew that was as stubborn as she was, was himself.

It was already dark outside by the time he forced himself to go back to the motel room. The curtains moved slightly as he approached the door, so Barton was probably still in the exact same position that Steve had left him in.

The lights were still on when he stepped inside. Casey had changed into more comfortable clothes and was sitting in the spot that Steve had been in earlier, one of the books in her lap and her hair tied up in a bun to keep it out of her face.

For a second Steve hesitated when he was suddenly reminded of how young she really was, but he had already made his decision.

Casey was making a point of not looking up at him as he approached the end of the bed. Barton had already shifted, staring up at him with those unnatural eyes. His bow was back on the side table.

“About our conversation earlier…” Steve started letting out a sigh when Casey continued to ignore him. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have been so hard on you when you were only thinkin’ about us as a group.”

Casey’s head snapped up, her eyes wide. She looked over at Barton and lifted a shaky finger to point at Steve. “Did you hear that? Boss just said that I was right.”

Of course that was the only thing that she would listen to.

Barton silently nodded his head once in response.

Casey let out a whoop of happiness as she tossed the book in the air and bounced over to the end of the bed to slap Steve on his shoulders. “Shit! Fuck yeah! I get to use that gun you been hiding from me since Chicago, right?”

“The only way that you’re gonna learn is if you take this seriously. It isn’t gonna be just shootin’, but a lot of other things that you’re gonna need to take care of yourself when we get down to the nitty gritty stuff.” He was pleased to see that Casey immediately straighten her back and took her hands off of him.

Steve was less than pleased when she got off of the bed so she was standing next to him and then saluted. “Yes, boss! Sir! I am ready and rearing to go for this boot camp!”

He sighed once again, they had a long way to go.

-

They ended up somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Montana. Casey had looked in the classified ads and had found an elderly couple looking for some people to go to their cabin and take care of the property to prepare it to be sold.

Steve didn’t like calling it luck, luck was too flighty to put their hopes on. But they had caught a break.

The cabin was in an isolated enough area that they could do whatever it was that they wanted.

Casey was turning out to be a good and bad student at the same time. While she excelled at anything involving a firearm, she kept getting distracted when it came to hand-to-hand combat. Steve wasn’t sure if it was her focus on wanting to shoot or the fact that she was too anxious to go through all of the steps properly.

Between lessons they worked on the house. Taking care of the gardens, repairing some of the wooden siding and painting the rooms inside of the house.

He goes into the nearby town to access the SHIELD database every week, still never anything about Barton’s sighting in Salem.

Over time Barton becomes looser than he was when they pulled him out of the Mojave Desert. It takes a while, but he eventually starts talking to them without being spoken to. He’d get up and explore the area around them without asking for permission.

Once Steve had caught him sleeping in one of the trees behind the property.

Casey claimed that the blue in his eyes wasn’t glowing as brightly as they were when they had found him, but Steve was still on the edge about that fact.

Sometimes they got together and Barton shared a few things about SHIELD that he knew had been done under the table, including things that he had done under their orders that hadn’t necessarily been legal either.

The HYDRA insignia they had found on the agent that had attacked him never left the back of Steve’s mind.

Barton wasn’t the only one to loosen up, or so Casey had pointed out loudly one balmy night near the end of June. Apparently a Brooklyn accent was a lot funnier when it peaked out through his present way of speech.

(It had just been Casey’s birthday only a few days before. Steve had already decided that there was no reason to celebrate his.)

All in all, the summer went over quite smoothly and soon the season transitioned into the fall.

One faithful day, 3534 hours and 12 minutes since they had arrived at the cabin, snow started fluttering down from the sky.

Steve ignored it at first. The snow wasn’t that much of a problem for him. It was the bite of the wind nipping at the back of his neck that started it all. Casey often pointed out that he was wearing too many layers of clothing, but he couldn’t help it.

He had been sleeping better, if only getting a few hours of sleep every night, but as soon as the ground turned white and the sun was blocked out by thick clouds, all of that stopped.

The worst part of it all was that he couldn’t get away. The nights that he couldn’t find any rest were spent in the bathroom of all places. It was located in the center of the house and there were no windows. There was no way of him being reminded of what it looked like outside. After a week he discovered the most comfortable position was in the bathtub.

His drawings had taken a turn for the worse. Crumpled pages often littered the floor. They were all picked up and tossed out. Once he had even thrown them into the fireplace that they had lit to heat up the main room.

There wasn’t a lot of snow. It wasn’t even that cold. Steve had to remind himself of that every day as he stared at the thermometer in the kitchen that told them what the temperature was outside the cabin.

It was Barton who declared that it was time to leave. It had taken a clump of snow sliding off of the roof right in front of the window where Steve was cutting up some vegetables next to and him falling to the floor as he startled and nearly slicing off three of his fingers for the others to realize how bad he was faring in the cold weather.

Barton had patched up his hand expertly before he told Casey to call the elderly couple and tell them that they wouldn’t be able to take care of the cabin any longer. He had then packed all of their belongings to get them ready to depart as soon as it was possible.

Steve was ashamed by the way that he was acting. He didn’t have any memories of what it was like when he was frozen. He hadn’t felt any pain or any cold when he had crashed. Everything had gone black up until he opened his eyes in the SHIELD facility in New York. There was no logical reason for him to feel so unsettled because of the cold.

He couldn’t have been happier when he was bundled up in the back of his truck with Barton driving away from the cold.

(6395 hours and 9 minutes)

-

It was a lot better when they were away from the snow and the cold.

Once they had reached Nebraska Steve decided that he had had enough of just sitting around in the back of the car. Instead of getting back in the driver’s seat of the truck, he took his bike out and drove in front of the truck for a few days.

Training turned out to have been beneficial.

On an occasion they had been jumped by an unhappy bunch of men who had been duped out of a lot of money when they lost in pool against Casey and Hawkeye. Their technique had gotten better over the months and often Casey would lose first only to proclaim double of nothing and handing the cue over to Barton when she came close to losing the second time.

One of the men had tossed a bottle at the back of Steve’s head when they exited the bar later. The others had moved in on Casey and Barton.

In short, they were taught a lesson.

Barton had kneeled down next to Casey afterwards, who had lost her balance after stomping on one of the man’s ribs, and placed his hand gently on her face. He tilted it to the side to inspect for injuries. “Are you hurt?”

“No.” Casey gritted out before she turned to spit on the man on the ground closest to her.

Barton caught sight of the small scar on the bridge of Casey’s left cheekbone and he poked at it.

Casey had batted his hand away. “That’s an old hurt. There was a time that I wasn’t able to protect myself from a drunken asshole.” She got up and kicked another man in his back when the bartender came running out.

They quickly ran into the truck and sped off.

It was somewhere around near the border between Oklahoma and Texas that they picked up a new friend.

Or at least that was what Casey and Barton thought of him.

Steve was none too happy when Barton came back from groceries one day with a dirty dog trailing behind him. The dog was disgusting. It was covered in mud and its fur was tangled and matted in some places. Even the way that it stared up at him with its single eye wasn’t winning Steve over.

Casey had immediately taken to the dog. Since it was obvious that it wasn’t someone’s pet with the way it looked, she asked Barton how he had found it and how he had gotten it to follow him.

Barton had just shrugged. “He likes pizza. He’s a pizza dog.”

Normally Steve didn’t really care too much about what the two of them got up to, Casey and Barton were getting to be pretty good friends, but he had to draw the line at this.

“I ain’t having no damn dog in this room. It don’t matter if you take it in here, it’s going to get dirty all over again after you bring it back outside and let it go on its merry way.”

They had snuck him into the room during one of Steve’s early morning runs. He came back to the both of them covered in bubbles and soaking wet with a more than pleased dog wagging its tail next to them.

Casey had tried to convince him that it would be a good idea to bring the dog with them.

“Bring the dog with us? Don’t you realize how much work goes into a pet? We’re always on the road. We’re plannin’ on takin’ down a damn spy organization. Don’t you see that a pet will not fit into the equation no matter how you look at it?” Steve argued.

“Just look at Clint!” Steve realized that he hadn’t noticed when Barton had become Clint for her. “Seriously, boss. He and that dog have connected. You really gonna take away something that can completely be his and untainted by whatever shit he’s done before?”

Steve had still told her that under no circumstances would the dog come with them.

He should have known the lump in the backseat of the truck was too suspicious. By the time the dog had finally gotten enough from laying still and gotten up, they were on the highway.

It sat down in the middle of the seats, resting its head on the console between the driver and passenger’s seats. It turned its head completely to look up at Steve a few times, having to compensate for the fact that it didn’t have a left eye, but he steadily ignored it.

He had given Casey and Clint both instructions that the dog was going to be left behind at their next pit stop. There were protests, but he wasn’t hearing any of them as he drove off without the dog.

Whatever deity was looking down on him wasn’t happy with the way he was dealing with things, because later that night he was sitting in front of their motel room when he spotted a yellow blob moving towards the truck.

They were at least 20 miles from where they had left the dog, but it had still managed to find its way back to them.

Steve gave up on getting his way when Casey came out to tell him that the shower was open and she squealed in excitement when the dog hobbled over to her.

Out of all the things that they could have called it, they decided to call the dog, Lucky.

-

They didn’t celebrate any of the holidays. Christmas had been a small matter of them getting little presents from each other. Steve had gotten a present for them both. A black collar with a purple tag that read ‘Lucky’.

The damned dog wagged its tail at him when Clint fastened it.

New Year’s came and went and before Steve knew it, it had been a year since he had woken up from the ice.

Neither Casey nor Clint knew the exact date, so it had just been like any other for them. For Steve it was a very big deal. It was just another indication of how long he had been lost. This century was proving to have its perks, but he wasn’t so sure that any of them were worth it.

Dying would have been so much easier.

-

SHIELD agents catch up to them in February somewhere in Louisiana.

Again they only seem to be focused on Hawkeye.

Again none are left alive.

This time Steve meticulously goes through the pockets of every agent. They don’t find much and there’s one particular incriminating piece of evidence that he doesn’t come across.

There’s a part of him that is starting to believe that he had never actually seen the HYDRA insignia on the lighter.

It had to have been his mind playing tricks on him.

The idea that what he saw was real smoulderedinside of him, especially when he sawa report filed shortly after their latest encounter that Hawkeye had been spotted. There was no difference between this time and the last besides the fact that they took down more agents than before.

Why was it that this time there was a report? None of it made any sense to him.

-

The next few months go past without too many problems.

The truck brokedown once in the middle of nowhere and Steve hadto get on his bike and leave the others behind in search of a place with a tow service. Itwas the longest that he hadbeen apart from either Casey or Clint since they have all gotten together and it naggedat him.

They continue the conversation that they were having before the truck had broken down in the waiting room of the dealership that the truck had been brought to in order to get fixed.

It was conducted in Sign Language and they got more than a few curious and confused looks sent their way.

Steve wasn’t sure at that point how focused SHIELD was on finding him, they hadn’t been able to pin a positive identity on him since he had left, but he knew that the search for Hawkeye picked up again after their last encounter.

As of so far, they had been biding time.

Over the past year Clint had seemed to come to a conclusion that Steve’s endeavor was justified in some ways. He was giving them information about the organization that Steve never knew even from hacking their database a few times a month.

They needed to find the opportune moment to infiltrate SHIELD and take it down from the inside.

Eventually they found themselves back near the Rocky Mountains and Casey made a point of the fact that she wanted to go camping under the stars.

It was nice enough weather that they spent as much of the time outside as possible. They shared a tent that was just big enough for three people and a dog.

A lot of the time was spent on coming up with ideas on how to get into SHIELD and, preferably, how to take it down without being caught or killed during the process.

The stars were shining bright above them, with no light pollution from a city to drown them out. The moon was only a waxing crescent, but the fire that they had started kept the area around them illuminated.

Clint was already sleeping inside of the tent and Casey was dozing off across from Steve when he grabbed his sketchbook.

The latest pages had slowly been filling up, piece by piece. He had been working on them for months on end and had been filling them in whenever he was at peace or clear of mind. The one that he was working on that night was a reminder of a night similar to this, long ago.

The trees surrounding him were different to the ones back then and the company was a lot less rowdy, but Steve was still feeling nostalgic. There was also the fact that he wasn’t miles inside of enemy territory.

A rustling near the tent took him away from what he was doing and he saw Lucky come out of the tent. He paid no mind to the dog as he walked over to the tree line to relieve himself. It was strange when Lucky walked over to him instead of going back into the tent to join Clint. The dog simply plopped himself down next to Steve, closed its eye and started snoring.

Steve huffed under his breath as he stared down at the dog next to him. He looked over to where Casey was leaning against a log to make sure that she was still sleeping before he reached up to scratch Lucky’s scruff.

-

In all the time that he’d been running away, Steve had only been recognized once.

He and Casey had been walking back to where they were staying for the night when they were caught by surprise by two SHIELD agents. Steve managed to get his agent dealt with relatively quickly before he ran over to help Casey, who was having problems with the man that she was facing.

Steve was able to get the larger agent off of her and down on the ground. There was a slight pause as the agent and Steve stared each other down before dreaded words reached his ears.

“Captain America?”

The words echoed through his mind as the agent stared up at him with confusion and surprise. Casey had already gotten her composure back, the gun held out in her right hand, but her left arm curled against her chest.

“Boss. We gotta take care of ‘im.”

The agent was muttering to himself in front of them. “Holy crap. All this time it’s been Captain America that’s been with Hawkeye.”

It would have been so easy to let Casey out one right between the agent’s eyes, but he couldn’t really say what drove him to walk over and kick the man in the face.

Steve straddled him, seeing the shock in his eyes as he pulled back his fist and slammed it into the agents face.

And again.

And again.

He didn’t stop until Casey called out to him from behind him. Steve stopped, panting as he stared down at the bloody pulp of what had once been a face. His hand was aching something fiercely and he could already feel the blood that was splattered on his face start to dry. Steve turned around to look at Casey then.

Her mouth was flat as she looked at him and she was cradling her left arm to her chest with her other arm now, the gun still in her hands. “We gotta go, boss. We gotta check on Clint and Lucky.”

“Yeah. Yer right.” Steve pushed himself off of the bloody limp body beneath him.

Clint and Lucky were both alright when Steve and Casey made it back to them. They jumped into the truck and sped off immediately, not pausing to look at Casey’s injury or take time to wash Steve off.

The blood was completely dried when they stopped at a roadside gas station and got him access into the bathroom behind the building.

His face was covered in droplets and spatters and it was sticking in his hair. His shirt was ruined. It turned out that his knuckles were cut and bruised, but it would take little to no time for them to heal, so he didn’t worry about them.

When he came back out he was feeling a bit better than before. Steve wouldn’t be able to clean fully until he was able to wash himself in a proper shower, but he had gotten most of it off. He still tasted the metallic taste of blood on his lips though.

Clint was splinting Casey’s hand when he got back and they both turned to look at him. There was nothing else that he could do but shrug. There were no words for what he had done. He found that he didn’t really care.

Just another casualty of war.

There was nothing else to it.

-

The moment that they had been waiting for started with Clint cursing at the television hanging in the corner of a bar that they were in. They were down in Texas to avoid the cold of winter.

Casey was losing at pool, like usual, when Clint spoke up.

“Holy fucking shit.”

Steve had gotten used to Clint cursing it up like a storm now that the man was pretty much free from the mind control that Loki had placed on him. It still wasn’t completely gone, but Clint was mostly himself now. He found that the sharpshooter tended to be very snarky when he wanted to be.

“Guess that tin can of his wasn’t going to be strong enough at one point.”

A few more people looked over to the television at that, as well as Steve. He was shocked by what he saw on the screen.

The reporter was just repeating what had happened and there was a video of missiles being shot into Stark’s house in Malibu. It collapsed into the ocean shortly after.

The reporter continued on about a terrorist attack at the Grauman’s Chinese Theater and that Stark’s bodyguard had been caught in the attack. After that it cut to a different video of Tony Stark being hounded by reporters outside of the hospital where the man was kept and how he issued a televised threat to the Mandarin.

Steve wasn’t aware that he had been staring at the screen until a hand wrapped around his forearm. “Boss? You alright?”

He cleared his throat as he turned his eyes aware from headlines that were claiming that Tony Stark had perished in the attack on his home in Malibu. “Yeah. It ain’t a problem. Let’s get out of here.”

Casey and Clint both followed him out of the bar without any complaints and didn’t say anything to him as the rest of the day proceeded.

It was 32 hours and 46 minutes later that breaking news interrupted the program that Casey was watching on the television.

The Mandarin had kidnapped President Ellis and was keeping him hostage and Iron Man, or Iron Men since there was a whole hoard of them, had shown up and battled it out.

Different headlines were flashing over the screen one after the other. But there was just one that mattered to Steve.

Tony Stark was a good man. He had inadvertently helped Steve in his escape from SHIELD and given him the means to disappear. Steve was happy that the man was alright.

-

The best news came to them in January, about five days after the anniversary of when Steve had woken up in modern times.

Two years had gone by and he had been wandering without too much of a purpose.

Nearing on a year and a half since he decided that SHIELD needed to be taken down.

As he read through the latest reports and bulletins on the SHIELD database website he discovered that he had finally come across the opportune moment that he had been waiting for.

It was an announcement that Stark had gone from a full-time consultant to only being a consultant for certain projects and it was followed with a list of projects that were switching head engineers or being discontinued.

SHIELD was backing off from Tony Stark.

Steve could only imagine how Stark must have wanted to take a step back. He had blown up all of the Iron Man suits that were present at the fight against the Mandarin and Iron Man hadn’t been seen once since the incident.

He can understand why SHIELD had backed off. Even if Tony Stark was a consultant, there was still the entire matter of ‘Iron man yes, Tony Stark no’ that had gone on during his evaluation that Steve had read through during his time in SHIELD.

With SHIELD turning their way away from Tony, perhaps Steve could use that to his advantage.

Surely Tony wouldn’t be too averse to seeing him again. He thought about the keycard that gave him access to any of Tony’s residences that was nestled in the bottom of his backpack.

If he could somehow get Tony over to his side, maybe he could find better information on SHIELD. After all, Tony was an expert at hacking into their systems.

Steve had used Tony Stark to his advantage once before and it had worked perfectly, surely it would work a second time.

He put the laptop aside and walked over to the bathroom to grab the electric razor.

Over the past few months he had been taking meticulous care of his beard and he was sad to see it go with so little effort. It was strange to see his face bare after so long. It was even stranger to run his hands over his smooth chin.

Seeing Clint and Casey react to his bare face was even funnier though. Steve walked out of the bathroom when they returned to the room.

Casey actually dropped her mouth open in surprise and the bag in her hands fell to the ground. “Wow, boss. I don’t think I ain’t even seen you without hair on your face.”

“Yeah, _boss_.” Clint always had a way of making the word sound like he was mocking him. “What’s going on?”

“Casey, I need you to shave my head. As soon as it grows back to a respectable length, we’re gonna be on our way again.” Steve explained as he motioned her to join him in the bathroom.

“I don’t get it. What’re you so excited about?”

Steve grinned over at them. “We’re goin’ to New York.”

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

No matter how long he stared up at the ceiling and counted upwards, sleep didn’t come for him any time soon.

It was silent besides the soft ticking of a wrist watch that was in his bedside drawer and his own breathing. The bed was cold as well. Cold as ever after Pepper had gone back to Malibu to complete the process of moving the company’s headquarters to New York. Cold because she had walked into his workshop and spotted that he was making an armor that would work with a modified version of Extremis, had turned around and left without a word.

Pepper hadn’t contacted him since.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t tried, but she wouldn’t hear him out. She hadn’t said anything, but he knew that this time he had truly screwed up. Possibly past the point of apologies.

“J, time?”

“It is currently 4:53 in the morning, sir.” JARVIS responded.

Tony groaned loudly as he rolled out of bed. He wasn’t going to be sleeping, so he might as well be productive about it.

He made a cup of coffee for himself in the kitchen, because there was no way he was trusting a newly rebuilt Dummy to make him the beverage without contaminating it with something potentially lethal, and went over to his lab.

The rebuilt tower was still barren. After the events with Loki and his army of Chitauri Tony had played with the idea of rebuilding the tower to accommodate all of the Avengers. In theory it would be better if they were all together to be able to respond to situations quickly.

The problem was that they weren’t a team. There was something missing in their dynamic to pull them together. Thor was obviously gallivanting around in Asgard, except for that time when a portal had opened up over London, Natasha was always off doing her spy things and Bruce… Bruce was a more complicated situation. Whenever he was in the United States he always stayed with Tony, had even heard him out when he told the story of what had happened to him over Christmas, but the man wasn’t comfortable with staying in the same place for too long.

Tony had received a postcard from Moldavia a few days ago.

Working on his inventions had lost the thrill that he had had in him since he was a young boy. With Pepper walking out on him, Bruce never around and Rhodey deployed to who even knew where, there was no way to distract himself but in his workshop.

The armor that he had been working on before Pepper caught him was laying unfinished on a table that he had pushed into the far corner of the workshop. The only completed part being a single hot rod red gauntlet that gleamed in the corner of his eye every single time he turned in its direction.

The only big thing that he was currently working on were the repulsor engines for SHIELDs brand new Helicarriers. After seeing them up close and personal and not having any plans of getting back into his suit, Tony decided that he might as well help society that way.

It got Fury off of his back for dropping over half of his contracts that he had been working on, which was always nice.

He settled himself underneath one of his Jaguars and started tinkering with the vehicle’s chassis to alleviate himself of his boredom and the need to think.

Somewhere along the way he had decided to pull out the engine and work on it to improve its torque when running. Tony had his face up close and personal to a few parts that he was soldering together when JARVIS suddenly piped up.

“Sir…” There was an uncharacteristic pause in the AI’s speech pattern. “It would appear that Captain Rogers’ access card has been activated.”

Tony dropped the soldering iron at the words, causing it to fall onto his sock-clad feet. “Ow!” He jumped up, but he had let go of the tool so suddenly that there had still been time for a few sparks to settle into his pants and smolder in the fabric.

He yelped as he patted at the flames with his soldering glove before he heard the looming sound of Dummy’s servos moving towards him. “Dummy! Don’t you-”

It was too late. A second later he was being covered in fire extinguisher foam. Tony flailed as he tried to get Dummy to stop. The foam got into his mouth as he tried to speak up and he ended up keeling over and hacking as he tried to expel it.

A few moments later the foam stopped spraying and he heard a curious whirring next to him. Tony looked up and glared at his one-armed bot. He spat on the ground, the disgusting taste of the foam still lingering.

“You stupid bot. No more jokes. You are getting donated to the community college.”

Dummy whirred softly and pointed his arm downwards in dejection, but before Tony could say anything else JARVIS spoke up once more.

“The elevator is currently on its way to the penthouse, sir. One male confirmed to be Captain Steven Grant Rogers accompanied by-”

Tony shot off to leave the workshop, barely managing to keep his balance as he ran through the foam to get to the door. He raced over towards the elevator and skidded to a stop just as it arrived with a ding.

He stared as the doors opened to reveal the passengers.

There he was all in his glory.

It had been over two years since Tony had last seen him, but it seemed like nothing had changed at all. Steve Rogers was standing in the elevator, his hand over the door to keep it from closing and a confused expression on his face.

“Tony? What happened to you?”

Oh god.

He still sounded so earnest and sweet. All this time Tony had been imagining and thinking of what he wanted to say to Steve when, or if, the man decided to come back into his life. None of those words were capable of even processing when he saw the blonde in front of him.

It was so unfair. Hadn’t life already been cruel enough to him lately? What had he done to deserve this?

“Are you alright, Tony?” Steve walked out of the elevator towards him.

Tony could feel his heartrate pick up as the man stood close enough to reach out and wipe away some of the foam that was still plastered on his face.

Steve frowned as he flicked his hand towards the ground, the foam splattering on the tiles. “Tony?”

“Well shit. I think you done and gone broke him, boss.”

Somehow Tony was able to tear his eyes away from Steve to look over the man’s shoulder to see who had spoken up. There was a young woman who was exiting the elevator with a one-eyed dog. She placed her hands on her hips as she regarded him before turning towards her surroundings.

“Holy fuck! Would you look at this place? I ain’t never seen anything like it!” She walked down the stairs that led towards the windows that stretched over the far end of the penthouse with her long dark hair flowing behind her and a happy dog following her.

“Language.” Steve muttered after her and all she did was wink at him before continuing on her way.

Who was that? Why was she here and what was her relation to Steve? Tony started when Steve reached out to wipe more foam off of him. “You haven’t said a word. Is that a good or a bad thing?” He chuckled nervously as he flicked more of the foam to the ground.

Tony’s mouth opened and closed a few times. What was he supposed to say? His brain was screaming at him to rage at Steve for being used in such a way, only for the man to show up without notice, but his heart was fluttering in joy.

“Hi?”

So eloquent Mister Stark.

Years of speech and etiquette training washed down the drain with a single word.

Steve’s shoulders dropped as he let out a huff of laughter, the corners of his eyes crinkling as he smiled. “Hi.”

“What. Uh, what are you doing here?”

“You did say that I could drop by if I ever felt the need to get away. Was I too forward in thinking that the invitation was still open?” The smile fell off of Steve’s face as he looked down at the tiles.

Tony immediately threw his hands up and shook them, the foam splattering to the ground. “No! I don’t- I mean. I meant it. Mi casa, su casa and all that jazz.”

Steve was still looking dejected as he looked up at Tony again with those stunning blue eyes.

“I’m just surprised. Also, I’m kind of wondering why you’re here and all considering you left without a word and decided to pop up randomly without notice years later.”

“I’m sorry. Tony. I don’t know how to- I was trapped. In an organization that I didn’t know or trust, in a world that I didn’t understand. I needed to get away from it all and figure things out for myself, without anyone controlling me. Please, I need you to understand. You were the only person who treated me like I was a human being and not an ancient relic.”

“Fine. I can get behind that.” Tony reached up to rub at his eyes, wincing when he started rubbing foam in them. Bad idea. “I just wish you would have told me. I could have helped. Now you come in here all good American boy along with a dog and a girl? How old is she even? Is there anything else I should be aware of?”

A thumping sound came from a vent above the bar before it opened up and a man jumped out of it.

“Perimeter is secure. You were right, SHIELD had no presence in the tower.”

Tony was sure that his life was a joke. Was he a character in a kid’s television show? He had to feel around to make sure that his jaw hadn’t actually dropped all the way down to the floor.

He whirled back towards Steve. “Is that a brainwashed assassin?”

“A half-recovered brainwashed assassin?”

It was too much too fast. He took a deep breath to try and calm himself down. Tony held up a finger at Steve when the blonde tried to speak up. “I need a moment. I’m covered in foam.” He muttered as he turned on his heel to head towards his bedroom to clean up.

He tossed his clothes in the corner of his room as he stepped under to shower to methodically clean up. Tony turned the heat up as far as he could stand as he leaned against the wall.

This was not happening to him.

Life was playing a big game with him. Tony had come to think that he was starting to make up for all of the wrong that he had wrought on the world, but more and more things were happening to show him that life wasn’t anywhere close to forgiving him.

Tony took his time in the shower before getting out to dry himself off and put on some clothing.

As he walked out of the bedroom and back to the living area, he spotted Steve standing with the young woman by the window with Barton peering at them from his perch atop the couch and the dog happily wagging its tail. Steve was pointing out at the city, no doubt telling them about New York.

The scene made his stomach drop. They all looked so close. What had happened to them that they had become such a tight knit group? If Steve hadn’t left the way that he did, could Tony have had that as well?

He walked down the stairs with his hands in his pockets. It was Barton who first heard him approach. The spy turned towards Tony. The man didn’t look anything like he had when Tony had last seen him during the attack on the Helicarrier. His eyes were still glowing blue, but they were nowhere near as bright as they had once been.

Steve looked up then, the faint smile immediately flattening as he spotted Tony.

Tony kept his face as neutral as possibly as he tilted his head towards the couches. Steve placed a hand on the young woman’s shoulder as he turned away from the windows to sit on the couches. They all sat down.

Steve was sitting across from Tony with the young woman next to him and Barton still sitting on the back of the couch. The dog was dutifully sitting by their feet, settling in to its new surroundings.

“Start talking.” Tony instructed.

“I don’t know where to start, Tony.”

“Then I’ll choose for you. Where did you go and what are you doing here? What about these two chuckleheads?”

The young woman opened her mouth to protest, but Steve placed his hand on her shoulder once more and squeezed. It was probably a lot harder than it seemed because the woman winced.

“Alright. I didn’t know what I was doing at first. I was just scared that SHIELD was going to find me and I just fled. I drove to the west and kept going until I hit Chicago.”

-

Tony realized how Bruce must have felt when he had been listening to him talk for hours on end. There were times when his concentration drifted off when the topic remained on something boring for a little while, only to snap back when Steve started talking about more pertinent things.

“So the kid’s name is Casey and you thought she was a boy?”

“I ain’t no kid! I’m gonna be nineteen in a few months I’ll let you know!”

Tony waved her off as he continued on with his questions. He hadn’t asked Steve any during his explanation of where he had been, so he was filled to the brim with them.

“Good for you. So somewhere along the way you found a brainwashed assassin and kept him as a pet?”

“That’s a harsh way of putting it, Tony…” Steve protested, but Tony ignored his answer in favor of his own questions.

“Alright. What about the dog?”

“Clint’s.” “Mine.” “Ours.”

He got three different answers from them and the others in front of him seemed to accept it besides Casey. She looked over at the two men in turn with a wounded expression on her face. She even placed her hand on her chest.

“That hurts. I know you didn’t like Lucky at first Steve, but he must have grown on you. And he ain’t just your dog, Clint.”

“I found him. I gave him pizza. He followed me. He’s my dog.”

The two of them started bickering. The dog, Lucky, got up and stared at them as they argued and Steve just gave him a look.

The blonde got up and started walking over to the bar without a word. Tony followed him, noticed that the other two didn’t even pause as he walked off with Steve.

Steve leaned up against the bar with his arms crossed over his chest as Tony came up next to him. They were quiet for a moment, listening to the two that they had left behind. It almost felt like old times to Tony.

A lot of things had changed over the past two years, but so far it seemed that Steve had remained as timeless as ever. The presence that he had was calming and it was something that Tony had found that he had missed.

“I know you could have kicked us out. You would have been right in doing so.” Steve spoke up, not taking his eyes off of his two companions.

“I couldn’t just kick you out without hearing an explanation. I think that you owed me that at least.” Tony replied, his voice soft. Even if the other two were still arguing, one was a spy, and he knew that they always kept their ears open.

Steve finally turned back towards him, his hand reaching out to Tony, but falling short as he paused and pulled it back. “You’re right.”

He could almost feel the spot on his arm where Steve would have undoubtedly placed his hand on tingle. It was unbelievable how the blonde just seemed to pull everything towards him without even trying. “What’s the real reason that you came? You wouldn’t just drop by without wanting something.”

“You’re right.” Steve chuckled humorously as he scratched at the base of his neck. “I need your help with something.”

“I reserve the right to kick you out if I don’t like it.”

“Fair enough…”

Steve pushed himself off of the counter so he was able to stand in front of Tony. Their height difference wasn’t that great, but at that moment Tony felt like Steve was looming over him.

Their eyes met and held for what seemed like minutes. Steve moved forward and leaned his hands against the counter behind Tony, who could feel his breath hitch.

“I need you to help me take down SHIELD, Tony.”

His brain rebooted. “Wait. What?”

-

For all that his workshop had almost seemed like a prison only mere hours before, it was proving to be his only sanctuary.

He had met Steve’s request with an incredulous look and slipped underneath the man’s arm that was keeping him from escaping easily before walking off. Steve had walked after him, to keep him from walking away without having more information.

Tony hadn’t listened too much of what the blonde had said to him, but just before he had shut the door in Steve’s face the man had shouted out that he believed that SHIELD had been infiltrated by HYDRA, of all things.

He could understand where Steve was coming from.

Perhaps the super soldier was holding a grudge against the organization for defrosting him and forcing him into the 21st century.

Maybe it had something to do with Aunt Peggy? Tony could still vaguely remember a time when she had been director and gone on and on about the good that they were doing the world. There was no doubt that the organization had greatly changed from those days.

Had Steve gotten paranoid and was slowly starting to lose his mind to the shock? That he was so out of it that he was starting to see things from his past that weren’t there?

The man seemed alright, but he undoubtedly hadn’t gotten over his PTSD yet. Was that a factor as well?

Despite the fact that he wanted to believe that Steve’s words were the rambling of a mad man, he couldn’t discredit them either. There was no one alive in the world that had a better understanding of HYDRA. If there was anyone that would be able to recognize the signs that Schmidt’s disillusioned Nazi cult was still around, then it was Steve Rogers.

It was an inevitability that he would eventually pull up the network and start hacking into the SHIELD mainframe. Tony would think that something that would link the organization back to HYDRA would pop up somewhere. No one was that in good being able to hide what they were doing. Especially not as a mole inside of the biggest spy organization in the world.

Or maybe it wasn’t.

What if there was someone that had been inserted near the start when the SSR had transitioned over to SHIELD and had been working undercover whilst whispering Schmidt’s insane ideals in people’s ears?

A lot of the biggest followers of Schmidt’s doctrine had been hunted down after the Second World War by the Howling Commandos as a tribute to Captain America’s sacrifice. Surely a small fry wouldn’t be able to infiltrate at such a scale?

Tony went through some of the older files. There wasn’t a lot there because not everything had been digitalized. Fury and even Peggy would want to keep their biggest secrets contained to a sheet of paper that was hidden somewhere only they had access to. He stopped when he saw a picture of several scientists huddled together over pieces of equipment.

There was one face in there that he thought he recognized, but there wasn’t any information pertaining to the scientists in the picture.

Tony sighed as he turned away from the screen to wipe his hands over his face. As much as he wanted to ignore something like this, he knew that he couldn’t. There was no way that he was going to let even the slightest possibility of HYDRA still existing slip away from him.

If something happened that he could have prevented by helping Steve, it would haunt him for the rest of his life.

He had no idea how long it had been since he had gone down into the workshop, but it was already dark when he emerged. The floor was quiet as he walked over to the place where he had seen the others last.

They hadn’t moved from where they had been. Casey had stretched herself over the couch, breathing softly in sleep with the dog curled up on the couch at her feet. Barton was still sitting on the back of the couch, his fingers worrying at the fletching of an arrow; not giving Tony much more than a cursory glance when he walked past.

A second look over of the room made Tony see that Steve had left the room to stand at the edge of the balcony. He walked over to join him, not saying anything as he approached to stand next to the blonde.

Steve didn’t give any notice that he acknowledged Tony’s presence until he let out a soft sigh. He relaxed his pose from holding onto the railing with his hands to leaning on his forearms instead. He rested his forehead against his crossed wrists for a moment before he looked up over at Tony.

“I thought it was different before, but now it’s being rebuilt. I hardly recognize anything.”

New York was a booming city that was constantly changing, but it had done so even more after the Chitauri invasion. With only four Avengers on hand, they hadn’t been able to stop all of the destruction in favor of shutting down the device and shutting down the portal. There were parts of the city where several blocks had been ravaged.

A part of Tony always wondered what the difference would have been if they had had Captain America with them that day, or even Hawkeye. Would they have been able to save more people?

Either way the New York that Steve had woken up to was already immensely different from the one that he remembered during the Second World War. Tony remembered that distant look on Steve’s face whenever he looked down at the city skyline when they were on the Helicarrier. This look was similar, but there was something about it that felt detached.

The skyline in front of them right now was still littered with cranes rebuilding skyscrapers and there was even a part where there were no lights at all because nothing had been rebuilt there yet.

“I was able to keep this baby standing, it can be your reference now. Something familiar to look up to.”

Steve scoffed softly and Tony quickly changed the subject as to not cause their conversation to go downhill before it had even started.

“About earlier… I’ll help you find out if HYDRA had indeed infiltrated SHIELD, but if we can’t find anything, I’m out.”

Steve rolled his head on his arms to look up at Tony better, revealing the long expanse of his neck. “And if we do find something?”

“I’m with you all the way, Cap.”

The blonde shut his eyes tightly before standing up straight again. He flashed a quick smile that almost seemed condescending for a moment, but before Tony could decipher its meaning Steve had wrapped his big arms around Tony’s shoulders and pulled him closer.

Tony was immediately reminded of the last time that Steve had held him like this and he froze. He was suddenly struck with the idea that Steve was going to leave him again after they had taken care of this.

Steve must have sensed his discomfort because the man pulled back. His eyes were searching for something on Tony’s face as he frowned. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be so familiar.”

“No! It’s okay.” Tony reached out and grabbed one of Steve’s hands. “You just surprised me is all, Cap.”

A quick flash of tenseness seemed to run down Steve’s spine before he pulled himself back together. “That’s not who I am anymore, so I would prefer it if you just called me Steve.”

“Whatever you say, Steve.”

The blonde smiled softly as he reached up to ruffle Tony’s hair. His hand lingered as it trailed down the side of his face and rested on his cheek for a moment before Steve pulled away once more and went back inside.

Tony gulped and had to turn back towards the skyline to pull himself together. What the hell was that? He placed his hand on his stomach as he willed it to calm down. Neither of them had been so touchy-feely even before Steve had run off. Now that he thought about it, Steve seemed to have made it a point to try and touch him every time they spoke.

Was this a thing?

Perhaps the blonde had just gotten more comfortable with himself. He had been placing his hands on Casey’s shoulders throughout the day and had even nudged Barton a few times. There was nothing to linger on.

Tony whacked himself on the side of his head before he took a deep breath and walked back into the penthouse as well.

They were going to have a long few days of planning and reconnaissance ahead. The least he could do was offer his guests a proper place to sleep.

Maybe he’d be able to sleep himself now.

-

“There’s really nothing any of you can do at this point. Barton and Steve will be recognized if they get anywhere near the Triskelion and there would be no way that I would be able to take Casey in the building with me.” Tony explained as he stood in front of a mirror as he tried to get his hair in order.

They were on the outskirts of Washington D.C. at the moment under the guise that Tony was going into the Triskelion to check up on the repulsor engines that were being fitted into the Helicarriers.

They had had to come up with a few creative tricks to get all of them into the hotel discreetly without SHIELD being notified of any presence besides Tony’s. Casey had been the easiest, as much as she had protested to acting like she was his personal assistant. She had more than often mockingly called him _Boss_ over the last few hours, much to Barton’s apparent delight as he snickered whenever he heard it.

He had heard the word float around a few times since they had all gotten together, but he hadn’t really figured out its meaning yet.

“I wish that we could help, Tony. I don’t like the idea of you going in there alone when there are such high stakes.” Steve said with a furrow in his brow as he watched Tony move back and forth to get himself presentable.

Tony scoffed as he waved the man off over his shoulder. “Don’t you worry Ca- uh, Steve. This isn’t my first rodeo. I have hacked into SHIELD before, you’ve seen it. I just need to find a way to hack into Fury’s or Pierce’s personal computers.”

Fury was the Director of SHIELD and Pierce was the Secretary of the World Security Council. Both of them had the highest clearance levels within the organization. If Tony wanted the ability to access every file and computer within the building, he was going to have to get his hands on that clearance. Even he wasn’t able to successfully replicate an Alpha level clearance without alerting anyone in SHIELD.

He looked through his travel bag in search of his cufflinks. He was pretty sure that he had tossed them in there before they had left. He cursed under his breath as he pushed some tools and shirts aside in search of them.

Someone clearing their throat next to him made him look up. A hand was outstretched with his cufflinks. Barton was looking down at him, his eyes covered up by sunglasses. “Looking for these?”

“Don’t tell me. Wonder dog sniffed them out.” Tony retorted as he swiped them and attached them. Said dog was sitting right next to Barton’s his tail wagging dutifully over the hardwood floor.

“Don’t let him on the upholstery. It’s not like I couldn’t pay for the dry cleaning, but Tony Stark does not travel with a dog.” He remarked as he slipped into his shoes.

“The dog has a name. It’s Lucky. Yer just like Steve. He ain’t gonna do anything that he ain’t allowed to do.” Casey said in an irritated tone as she pulled off the blazer that she had been wearing on the way up.

Tony didn’t dignify that with a response as he checked his pockets to make sure that he had everything that he needed on hand. His eyes momentarily paused on a small briefcase at the edge of the bed, but as tempting as it was to take along with him, the chances that he would need it were miniscule.

Steve joined him as he walked towards the door to leave. The man’s hand rested on the small of his back as they stopped. “Promise me that you’ll be careful.”

“Don’t sweat it. Careful is my middle name.”

“I know for a fact that it’s Edward.”

“Well it’s my second middle name then.” Tony patted Steve’s chest as he winked at him. With that he left the room.

He ran his hands down the front of his jacket before he slid on his sunglasses and stepped into the elevator that would bring him down to the parking level.

Before long he was parking his car outside of the Triskelion. Even Tony had to admit that the building was as impressive up close as it was from afar. The interior was blander than he liked himself, but spy organizations were boring besides the actual missions.

Tony passed the security gates with a swipe of his Fury-approved official consultant card and he stepped into the elevators.

Some of the agents behind him were looking at him as if they had never seen him before. He had been around in the Helicarrier often enough and had come by the Triskelion a few times as well. It wasn’t like he shouldn’t have been a familiar face.

He clicked his tongue as the doors opened to his floor. He was surprised to see a familiar face exit Fury’s office just as he walked over.

“Natasha. Love the hair. Very straight.”

“Love the sunglasses indoors, Stark. Very gaudy.” She quipped right back.

Tony let out a gasp in indignation. “I am wounded, Agent Romanoff.”

“If only.” Romanoff muttered as she walked passed him.

So rude. They had saved the world together, twice even. The least she could do was at least stick around for a minute and talk to him. Tony rolled his eyes as he strode into Fury’s office.

“Secure off- Stark! What the hell are you doing here?”

Tony looked at the watch on his wrist. It looked like he was at least 15 minutes early to his appointment. That was a first. Fury was looking even more disgruntled than usual, a flash drive in his hands.

Tony shut the door behind him as he walked in with his hands spread out beside him. “Is that the way you talk to me when I actually come on time for a meeting?”

“When you made the appointment I made the note of remembering that you usually show up over an hour late.”

“Wow. Everyone is _so_ testy today. Was there a bad batch of donuts or coffee in the cafeteria this morning or something?”

Tony walked over to Fury’s desk, stepping around it so he could look out the wall-to-ceiling windows. Compared to the New York skyline, Washington D.C. was boring in Tony’s mind. He would never want to live anywhere near the capital of the country. The only time he ever came was when he dropped by the Triskelion, or the courts. Neither necessarily were bright points in his life.

All work and no play.

He turned around and plucked the flash drive out of Fury’s hands, turning it around as he studied it. “This is a lot chunkier than I thought. I could make you better, smaller ones if you wanted me to.”

Fury pulled the flash drive back with a scowl on his face. “Keep your paws off of things that aren’t yours. Speaking of which, let’s get this show on the road so you can get out of my hair.”

Tony snorted as Fury turned around, his long black coat dramatically sweeping in the air behind him. He eyed the flash drive as Fury slipped it back into his pocket. A tiny device was now attached to the device and would allow Tony into Fury’s computer once the man plugged it in.

He whistled happily as he followed Fury into another elevator. Fury barked out an order to have the elevator take them down to the floor where the Helicarriers were located. There was some sort of warning about Tony not having the proper clearance level to go down there, but Fury quickly shut it up with an override command.

Despite having been monitoring their process, it was quite an impressive sight to see all three of them in their glory of nearly being completed. At this point it wouldn’t take more than a week for them to be fully operational and ready to be deployed.

The beautiful humming of repulsor engines filled his ears as they stepped out of the elevator and Tony let out a happy sigh.

It was a sound that he was starting to find that he was missing. At first he had been constantly surrounded by the humming when he still had the Arc Reactor in his chest. His hand came up and rubbed against the spot where the Reactor had been until recently.

“Can I go down and check on them?”

“If you don’t break anything.” Fury deadpanned. “I’m not going to stick around and be parental supervision.”

Tony took off his jacket and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt. They would both most likely be ruined by the end of the day, but it wasn’t like he didn’t have dozens more. “Yes, mom.”

Fury led him down to where several engineers were still working, gave them instructions to keep an eye on him and then walked off.

He shook some hands and signed a few autographs before turning towards the engines to see how they were treating his designs.

Besides the fact that none of them had an inkling of how the technology worked precisely, they had at least managed to put the engines together quite well. A few tip and tricks to help them make sure that the engines were working at their full potential.

They sure liked to soak up all of the information that he was giving them.

Tony looked up a little while later and looked at his watch. As much as he wanted to keep working on the engines, he actually had an important job to do. Hopefully Fury had plugged the flash drive into his personal computer already. That would make his night a lot easier.

He said his goodbyes as he slung his jacket over his shoulder and walked back up the stairs to reach the elevator.

Would hacking into Fury’s computer be enough?

“Elevator, locate Director Fury and bring me there.”

“Director Fury is currently located in Secretary Pierce’s office.” The elevator announced as it started travelling upwards.

Huh.

That was a good break for him. Must be fate.

Tony sauntered towards Pierce’s office, catching both men near the end of a conversation.

“And not just a fly-by, he’s got to mingle.”

“Ew. I hate mingling.”

Both Fury and Pierce turned towards the sound of his voice. He was pretty sure that Fury muttered something about the devil appearing, but Tony just plastered a large smile on his face.

“Look at you two, so chummy. Also, your offices are drearily similar. I thought you might be a bit more refined, Pierce.” Tony swept into the room and plopped down onto the desk chair.

He eyed the computer, moving the monitor to a different position and picking up the wireless keyboard to look at it. One would think that if they had Tony Stark as a consultant, that they would ask him to at the very least upgrade some of their technology.

It was quite sad really. A spy organization working with anything besides state-of-the-art Stark Tech. At least they weren’t using any Hammer Tech.

Tony tapped his finger over a flash drive port on Pierce’s computer and made an inquisitive noise before turning back to where Pierce and Fury were staring at him. He placed his hands on the desk and curled his hands together. “Gentlemen. What’s up?”

“We were just discussing a few matters. Including the fact that Nick just agreed that he would convince you to stop by my niece’s birthday party.” Pierce mentioned, his hands in his pockets.

“Birthday parties?” Tony winced as he got up out of the chair. “Did you hear what happened at my last one? I can’t guarantee that I won’t blow anything up.”

Fury interrupted them. “Stark. I would’ve thought you’d be down in the hanger changing everything about the Helicarriers.”

“Eh, I helped a bit.” He said with a shrug.

“If you’re satisfied, then I will be more than happy to escort you out of the building.” Fury said flatly as two men in dark gear walked into the room and pulled Pierce aside.

Tony watched them over Fury’s shoulder as they whispered with each other by the doorway. One of the men looked over and the corner of his mouth quirked upwards. “Stark.”

“Rumlow.”

He didn’t really know the man that well, but there was something about his gaze that just annoyed Tony to no ends. Fury had noticed that his concentration had left him and placed a not so gentle hand on his shoulder to steer him out of the room.

Tony threw a smile and a wave over his shoulder as Fury escorted him out and deposited him in the elevator. He got a look that told him that his presence was no longer welcome and he let the elevator doors shut without another word.

The niggling feeling that he was being followed itched at the back of his neck as he left through the reception and walked back to where he had parked his car. Tony looked around, but didn’t see anything. Perhaps he was just being paranoid. After all, he _had_ just placed hacking devices into two of the most secure computers in the country. It was only natural to be worried that super spies had already figured him out, especially with his reputation.

-

“There ain’t nothing at all? I thought you said that you were good at hacking!” Casey’s voice was loud right next to his ear and her hair was tickling at the nape of his neck.

“I am good at hacking. It could just be that there’s nothing to find.” Tony snapped right back as he moved to the side to try and get away from her.

Luckily for him neither of the hacking devices had been discovered as of yet. Fury had inserted the flash drive into his computer without any known problems and Pierce didn’t seem to have noticed either.

It was quite the thorough search that needed to be conducted. Both of the men had hundreds, if not thousands of secure files on their computers. The only interesting thing that they had managed to find on Fury’s computer was about the raid on the Lemurian Star and that he had tried to access the files on the flash drive retrieved from the ship without luck.

That was actually something that Tony thought was odd. With Fury having the highest clearance level, surely he should have been able to decrypt whatever he had gotten his hands on.

Pierce’s computer was a lot more boring compared to Fury’s. It was most filled with WSC files and contacts with the President and other high ranking officials of the American Government.

That was probably what was putting Casey on edge.

“No way. If the boss and Clint say that they think that HYDRA is in SHIELD, then they have to be right.”

Tony scoffed. “Just because we aren’t finding anything doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re wrong. It might just mean that HYDRA is hiding within the lower core of SHIELD. It could mean a lot of different things.”

Casey tried to shove her way into his space again and this time he shoved her right back. There was no way that he was going to be able to work properly if this girl could not calm herself down and let him do his job.

“Casey.” Steve’s chastising voice came from behind him from where he and Clint were sitting at the table.

Tony grunted as Casey tried to push his hands aside. They shoved each other a few more times until Casey managed to get her grubby little fingers on the keyboard. The next shove made her fingers smash into the keys.

“Shit!” He was really hoping that she hadn’t pressed in a command that would lead to the SHIELD security system detecting their presence.

They both stopped when the screen flickered, showing off a distorted insignia before reverting back to the page that Tony had been on last.

Tony and Casey looked at each other in surprise. “Do that again. What did you do?”

“I don’t know! I just hit some random keys when you shoved me.” She protested.

By the sound of chairs scraping over the floor it seemed that Steve and Barton would be joining Casey in looking over his shoulder.

“Give me your hands again.” Tony instructed the young woman. She gave him a skeptical look before turning to Steve. The blonde just shrugged and she sighed as she held out her hands.

Tony grabbed onto her wrists, trying to remember what position they had been in when her fingers had smashed into the keyboard. Even if they had to randomly play with the keys until they found the command that had changed the screen.

Casey let out a cursory sound of protest as Tony started experimenting by pressing her hands into the keyboard. They were doing several things, such as reverting to desktop, making a screen shot and closing documents, but nothing was giving them the screen that had suddenly popped up on the monitor.

It didn’t take too long before Casey ripped her hands out of Tony’s grip and started smacking at the keyboard by herself. Tony scooted to the side so she wouldn’t have to curl around him to get at it.

Many frustrating minutes later Casey growled out in exasperation and banged her forehead against the keyboard. Steve, Tony and Barton immediately jumped up when the screen switched and flickered for a few seconds with the same distorted insignia flashing at them for a moment before reverting back to the desktop.

Steve growled under his breath as Tony dropped himself back into his chair.

“Shit.”

“That’s an understatement.” Clint muttered.

Casey’s head snapped back up. “Did it work?”

“That was the HYDRA insignia alright.” Steve said.

Tony watched as the man placed his hand over his eyes as he tried to visibly steel himself. He couldn’t even imagine what was going through Steve’s mind at that moment. Suddenly finding out that a later incarnation of the organization that you were fighting for had morphed into the thing that you had tried to fight against.

He got up out of his chair and walked over to Steve, placing a hand on the arm that was hanging next to the man’s body. Steve slid his hand down his face and turned to look at Tony. His face was a clear indication of the agony that he was feeling and his eyes were burning in rage.

“Steve?”

“Who is Alexander Pierce? Who are the people who work closest with him?”

This was not the time to go barreling headfirst into an unknown situation. “Steve, if you can just-”

“I asked you a question, Tony.”

Tony was so taken back by the harshness in Steve’s voice that he pulled back. He eyed the man curiously as he clenched his jaw. He knew that Steve was probably feeling distraught about the implications of what they had just discovered, but there was no reason to be this hotheaded so early in the game.

There were stories that he had heard from Howard that Steve tended to be irrational when it came to personal matters, but this was starting to take it to the next level. Tony had never expected a man like Steve Rogers to be so filled with rage.

The strangest thing was that Casey and Barton were just looking at Steve with their back straight, as if they were waiting for a directive.

He cautiously stepped back to where his chair was and pulled the laptop over to him. “I have a pretty good idea, but I’ll double check to be sure.”

Steve nodded, his fists clenching at his sides as he strode out of the living area and stomped his way into the bedroom. Casey hurried after him, with Lucky whining softly from underneath the table.

Barton leaned down to run a hand over the dogs head.

“What’s up with him?” Tony asked.

Barton simply gave him a look before he strode off after Steve and Casey.

Tony let out a sigh as he turned back to his laptop. That was certainly a scene that he hadn’t expected on experiencing. He had seen that kind of look before and it certainly wasn’t on men like Steve.

It eerily reminded him of the crazed looks that people like Aldrich Killian and Obadiah Stane.

It wasn’t too long before Steve returned, without his entourage. Tony tried to make a point of not looking over at him as the man pulled up a chair next to him. The tablet next to him was shining on the blonde’s face as he looked over it to read through the names that Tony had taken note of.

It seemed that Steve had calmed down from whatever episode that he was going through earlier, but there was still something predatory about him.

“So many already?”

“Maybe. I can’t find a way to get into Pierce’s most secret files, which is probably where he keeps his HYDRA comings and goings. These are the people that are closest to him, but that doesn’t mean anything.”

On the top of the list there was an accusing _Nicholas J Fury_ staring up at them. Tony highly doubted that Fury of all people was HYDRA, but at this point they couldn’t take any chances. No one could be taken off of the list, no matter what anyone’s connection and personal acquaintance was.

If there was anyone on that list that Tony was pointing his finger at, it had to be Brock Rumlow.

“I’ll keep going through his files to see if there’s any other pings in connection of who might be in league with him, but there’s no way we can know for sure. We need to get hold of some definitive information before we do anything.” Tony almost wanted to laugh because he was the one that was saying it, but this was a chance that this was on a bigger scale than any of them had dealt with before.

“You should try to sleep.” Steve muttered.

Tony scoffed. “I wouldn’t even if I thought that I would be able to. It’s going to be a long night.”

Steve got up and walked over to the kitchen where he started preparing coffee. It didn’t take too long before he came back and placed it next to Tony. He grabbed the mug and took a sip. Black and scalding. Just the way that he liked it before an all-nighter.

-

He jumped when the door to the room suddenly slammed shut. Tony felt around to see if there was anything he could use to defend himself when Natasha came into view. If he didn’t know better, she was looking more ruffled than he had ever seen her.

“Romanoff?”

“Fury is dead, Stark.”

The entire night he had been worrying about the implications of Fury’s and Pierce’s close friendship and what it could possible mean. Part of Tony had been getting himself ready to accept that Fury might not be who they thought he was, but this wasn’t something that he was prepared to hear.

“What happened?”

“Yesterday he was assaulted while driving home. He managed to escape and make his way to Maria Hill, but he was gunned down. He died on the operating table.” It wasn’t just a trick of his mind. It was clear now that she was distraught about what had happened. “You were one of the last people to see him. Was there anything strange?”

Tony shook his head, running a hand through his unruly hair. “No. He met up with Pierce and there was that flash drive that he was playing with when I entered his office.”

“Shit.” She placed her hands on her hips as she paced back and forth. Tony watched the doorway behind her with baited breath. There was no way that the others weren’t waiting on the other side to make sure that she wasn’t going to be a threat to them.

“Why is there dog hair on the floor?”

Tony looked down at the floor. That damned dog’s hair was all over it. The dark hardwood just made the presence of the yellow hair that much starker.

“Uh. I have a dog.”

“You have a dog?” She turned skeptical eyes to Tony.

He was struggling to come up with words when Lucky walked out from where the bedrooms were and walked over to Tony with his tongue lolling out of his mouth. “See?”

“I thought your bots were your pets.”

This was something that he wasn’t prepared for. He was about to string together an entire story about how he had picked the mutt up somewhere when he heard Steve speak up. “It’s alright, Tony.”

Natasha immediately turned towards the door, pulling a gun out from underneath her jacket and pointing it at the origin of the noise.

Steve stepped out from the doorway. His hands up and the portfolio that was holding his shield hanging from his fingers. He stepped out slowly before placing the portfolio against the wall beside him.

“Captain America? What the h-” She froze when Barton came out of the doorway with his bow and quiver in one of his hands. “Clint?”

“Nat. It’s alright. Put the gun away.”

Natasha turned towards Tony with a flabbergasted look on her face. There was nothing else that he could do at that moment but shrug. What kind of words was he supposed to string together to try and make sense of this situation?

She hesitated for a few moments longer before lowering her gun. “One of you better start talking and it better be quick.”

-

“The only thing that doesn’t make sense right now is that if HYDRA has been SHIELD all along, why Fury is dead. Do you know of anything that he might have had over Pierce’s head?” Steve asked Natasha.

They were all sitting down in the living area of the hotel room. Tony had pushed the laptop aside for this conversation. Casey had joined them as well after Natasha had let her guard down as well. After a few tense introductions and explanations, they immediately sat down to start going over what they knew.

Romanoff shook her head. “I wouldn’t know. Unless…”

“Unless what Agent Romanoff?” Steve questioned her.

“That flash drive that he was playing with when you saw him, Stark. I gave that to him after a raid on the Lemurian Star.”

It looked like she was going to explain what had happened there, so Tony raised a hand to stop her. “We know, I read the report.”

“Doesn’t it strike you as strange? Everything about that situation didn’t make any sense. I think Fury might have hired the pirates so he would have a reason to go in and I could download whatever was on that flash drive.”

“So what’s on the flash drive?” Tony asked her. She simply shook her head. If Fury had seen anything incriminating on the flash drive then he hadn’t gotten the chance to tell anyone.

“I know who killed Fury, though. Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe he exists, the ones who do call him the Winter Soldier. He’s been credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years.”

It was Barton who piped up this time. “He’s pretty much a ghost story, but he almost killed Natasha on a mission. She was escorting a nuclear engineer and he shot right through her to get at his target. Same MO with Fury?”

“A Soviet slag, no rifling.”

A hushed silence filled the room as they took in the information. Tony’s mind was reeling with the implications of the situation. If HYDRA had been hiding from within SHIELD, then why hadn’t they come out yet? Johann Schmidt had had crazy ideas of the ideal world.

There was no better way for HYDRA to slither its way into world security than through SHIELD, so why hadn’t they made their move before this? There was something that they were still missing and it irked Tony. Something big was on the verge of happening and they just needed to figure out what.

Tony perked up. He walked over to grab his tablet and he handed it over to Natasha so she could look at the list of names that he had compiled.

“Do you think any of these people are so closely connected to Pierce that they might be HYDRA?”

There was a momentary pause in her movements when she undoubtedly read the first name on the list. It took a second for her to pull herself together and start reading through the compilation of names.

“Hard to say. A lot of these names are from the Strike Force. A lot of them are a bunch of sleazeballs.”

“Is there a way that we could talk to any of them?” Steve asked them.

Natasha placed the tablet aside. “I’m sure I can find a way.”

-

Tony paced back and forth, worriedly gnawing at his thumb nail as the men in front of him started to show signs of waking up. Natasha had left with the promise of bringing them back some possible informants and had given Barton the instruction of finding them some place secluded to conduct their questioning.

There was no way that any of this was going to be anything but the classic spy torturing to get information out of someone. Not with Romanoff and Barton leading the way.

He watched as Rumlow and a man he hadn’t seen before picked up their heads and looked around. Both men were tied to concrete pillars and sat down on some rickety chairs that Casey had pulled out from a back office.

No one was going to be able to hear what was going to go on in the warehouse. Barton had easily found them a rundown place that was miles away from the city. There was nothing around them.

Tony looked over at Steve who was holding the portfolio in his hands and slowly running his fingers over the rounded edges. His face was pulled back in one of utter focus. Casey was standing next to him, ashes from the cigarette held between her lips fluttering down to the cracked ground.

There was a part of him that wondered why Steve was letting someone smoke, but he figured that the man did come from a time where pretty much everyone smoked.

“What the fuck?”

There was an immediate shift in the atmosphere when Rumlow woke up enough to take in his surroundings and the situation that he was in. His eyes instantly narrowed and shot over to Romanoff, who was standing in front of him and Barton, who was sitting on a beam above them with his bow at the ready.

Confusion crossed over the man’s face before he turned back towards Romanoff. “What is the meaning of this, Agent Romanoff?”

“We just want to ask you a few questions is all, Rumlow.”

Rumlow scowled at them and the man who was chained beside him looked around the room with an uneasy look on his face. It was clear that the both of them realized that this situation wasn’t good for either of them.

Tony gripped the handle of the briefcase that he was holding tightly as he watched Black Widow step closer to their two captives.

He had an idea of what the woman was actually capable of and he was pretty sure that what he was feeling was terror, even though he was standing on her side of things.

“You can make this easy on yourselves and just tell us what we want. Or we could just do it the hard way.” Natasha said as she placed her hands on her hips and stared the two men down.

The other man looked over at the side wall and Rumlow met her gaze straight on. His arms flexed as he tried to get loose from his bonds. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing, Romanoff, but you’re going to pay for this along with the traitor and the deserter.”

“I’m pretty sure that neither of them were a part of HYDRA to begin with.”

Rumlow clenched his teeth as he looked up at her, and Natasha took his silence as a cue to continue.

“It’s quite a smart idea, hiding from within an organization such as SHIELD to concoct your plans. I’m just wondering why it was necessary to kill Fury. Did he get to close to figuring out what was going on? Or maybe Pierce just decided that it was time to get rid of him?”

Neither of the men seemed like they were going to talk before Rumlow let out a bark of laughter. He rubbed his eyes off against his shoulders as best he could to try clear them from tears that were filling up in his eyes.

Natasha watched unamused as he tried to compose himself again. Rumlow’s laughter trailed off after a while and he looked up at Natasha before turning his eyes over to the other occupants of the building. His eyes remained glued on Tony as he spoke again. “You think you have it all figured out, don’t you? Fury’s precious little pet.”

Before Widow could step up to give Rumlow a piece of her mind an arrow shot down from the rafters and imbedded itself on the chair right between Rumlow’s legs. “The next one will be higher.”

“There’s no use, Brock. If you and your friend don’t tell us, then we’ll just carry on with others until we find the information that we’re looking for.” Natasha said in a condescending tone, almost as if she were talking to a child.

“It’s too late!” The other Strike Force member opened his mouth for the first time. “Even if you do get information, there’s nothing that you can do to stop HYDRA from delivering death from the skies!”

It was almost as if someone had slapped him in the face. “Insight.” Tony whispered.

Steve must have heard him somehow, as he turned towards Tony. “What did you say?”

“Insight.” Tony said louder. Rumlow and the other man seemed to deflate slightly. “The new Helicarriers. Their weapons are synced with targeting satellites to pick out hostiles and take them out from the sky.” So stupid. He had been working on a project that was going to aid HYDRA in taking down anyone whom they saw as a threat to the rise of their regime.

Steve took out his shield, dropping the portfolio on the ground. Casey pulled out a weapon from her boots and strode up towards Natasha along with Steve.

Tony was shocked to see that the shield had been stripped of its paint. He had seen the prototypes and pictures of what the shield had looked like. Before Steve had left he had even gotten the chance to hold it. There had been a few nicks in the paint from bullets, but there was no way that the paint would come off without proper intent behind it. There was a point in the past few years where Steve had sat down and meticulously cleaned off all of the paint.

Rumlow snorted in amusement as Steve stepped up. His associate followed in his example. “Captain America? What do you think you can do? HYDRA has prospered even without the Red Skull. Cut off one head and two more shall take its place.”

It was Casey who sighed loudly. She tapped the gun against the side of her head as she walked over to the second man, tossing the cigarette butt onto the ground and squishing it with the ball of her foot. “Blah, blah. Ain’t it possible for you to come up with a different spiel?” She placed the muzzle against the man’s forehead and he barely had time to widen his eyes before she pulled the trigger.

The sudden bang shocked Tony and he watched with his mouth open as the man’s head slumped against his chest, blood and brain matter splattered on the pillar and wall behind him. Tony turned his eyes over to Steve.

Steve merely rolled his shoulders and moved his head side-to-side as he walked up to Rumlow.

“You can’t do it, you’re Captain America.” Rumlow spat out.

Steve looked down at him, still running his fingers over the edge of the shield as he regarded the man. His voice was devoid of emotion as he spoke. “Good thing I’m not Captain America anymore, then.”

He raised the shield up, the sunlight filtering in from the window bouncing off of it and flashing in Tony’s eyes just before Steve brought it down on Rumlow’s head.

A sickening crack and groan filled the room as Steve lifted the shield and slammed it back down.

Tony covered his mouth and turned away, hurrying to exit the warehouse. Once he was outside he leaned against the wall of the warehouse and spat out bile that he wasn’t able to keep down.

“Oh god.”

His free hand was shaking as he ran the back of his over his mouth to wipe away any bile that was still on his lips. He spat out saliva a few times in an attempt to rid himself of the sickening taste.

He pulled the briefcase close to his chest when he heard some rocks shift under pressure and turned to meet whoever had come after him head on.

Even covered in blood, Steve was still a sight to behold. The shield was nowhere in sight, but one look at the man was evidence enough of what had happened. His face was splattered with small blood droplets. His blue eyes were almost mockingly earnest as he held out his hand. Tony looked down at it.

There was no blood on it since the shield had been covering it from the splatter.

“Tony?”

Steve’s voice was soft and gentle. It almost sounded alien compared to the emotionless tone that he had heard only minutes earlier inside of the warehouse.

“I’m sorry that you had to see that, but you understand don’t you? There wasn’t anything else that we could have done with them. If we left them here to take down HYDRA they would have found a way to escape before we’d be able to come back and take them in. You understand, don’t you?”

A part of Tony understood. They would have to take down Insight, and by the looks of it they would have to do it quickly. It would only be a distraction to their main objective. Perhaps what they were doing was a little brutal, but maybe that’s just the way that war went.

That’s what it was. War. If they didn’t find a way to stop Insight and HYDRA, there would be war.

Steve had fought in a war before against HYDRA. If there was anyone who understood the ramifications of what they were on the verge of, then it was Steve.

He reached out and took Steve’s hand. The blonde immediately tightened his grip and pulled Tony close. Tony rested his head against Steve’s chest, trying to ignoring the sharp metallic smell of Rumlow’s blood.

“So you understand?” Steve’s chest rumbled underneath his ear as he spoke with his hand moving up to hold on to Tony’s neck, gently applied pressure against the back.

“I understand.” He did.

Steve’s hands came up to cup his face and tilted it up. Tony held his breath as Steve looked down at him, his blue eyes roaming over Tony’s face. His own eyes unconsciously slid shut as Steve leaned down to press their lips together.

It wasn’t anything more than their lips softly pressing together, but it felt as if fire was coursing through his body the moment they had connected. He had to keep himself from following Steve after the blonde pulled back.

Tony opened his eyes and looked up to see Steve smiling gently down at him. “I’m glad. Now let’s go. We have a regime to take down.”

Tony licked his lips as Steve turned away and walked off to where Casey and Barton were standing in the doorway of the warehouse, the both of them looking at Tony.

His stomach protested a bit when he tasted blood.

-

He was finding it difficult to sleep.

It’s not like it was something new. Tony had been having problems with sleeping for the past couple of years. If anything it should have been something that he was used to by now.

The darkness of his room and the muted noises of the road beneath him probably would have been soothing to anyone else, but to him it was just a distraction. Once he had read something about how, if one wasn’t able to sleep, they should get up and do something to break themselves out of the vicious cycle of trying to sleep.

Tony rolled out of bed and walked over to the bathroom. He turned on the cold tap and splashed his face with it. Feeling the need for some fresh air, he opened the window. He reached out to grab the hand towel to wipe off his face when he smelled smoked and heard voices.

He paused as he tried to listen into the conversation.

“It’s a good plan.”

“Of course it’s a good plan. Boss ain’t gonna come up with a stupid plan.”

“Quit yer arguin’.”

Tony paused as he tried to recognize the last voice.

“Do you think she’s gonna stick with us until the end?” The voice rang out again.

A soft hum came from Barton. “Of course. Nat knows which side is the best to stick with. What I’m worried about is Stark.”

A sound of agreement came from Casey right then.

“You don’t gotta worry about Tony. He’ll go through with it, I’ll make sure he does.”

There was silence for a few moments before the voice grunted in displeasure. “Fuck. I’ve been hankerin’ for a smoke all day. Especially when you stared smokin’ by me, Casey.”

“Then just smoke. Ain’t nobody gonna say a word about it.”

Tony dropped the hand towel on the ground as he slowly back out of the bathroom to go back to his bed. He tried to ignore the feeling of dread in his gut as he curled himself up in his blankets.

What he had just heard wasn’t of any consequence, he decided. His tired mind was just coming up with things to trick him.

-

Barton was kneeling down next to Lucky as he ran his fingers through the dog’s fur and was whispering to it.

The room wasn’t filled with much conversation besides that. Romanoff and Casey were sitting next to each other as they inspected their weapons together. Steve was leaning against the counter with the shield in his hands.

The image of Steve covered in blood was still fresh in Tony’s mind, even if the man had washed all of it off himself. His shield hadn’t been cleaned though. Tony stared at it from across the room. The pattern of the blood spatter on the shield indicated the position of it when it had caved in Rumlow’s skull, the angle and the force behind it.

Once upon a time he had taken a forensics course as a prerequisite. He had thought that he hadn’t paid too much attention to it, but everything was coming back to him as he stared at the blood pattern.

“Tony?” He looked over at Steve’s face when the blonde called out to him.

He beckoned Tony over with his hand and Tony got up and walked over to him. He could feel Romanoff’s calculating eyes at the back of his head as he walked.

The corner of Steve’s mouth quirked up as he reached out to pull Tony closer by the collar of his shirt. Unwillingly Tony licked his lips as he saw that. Steve’s eyes widened slightly, almost as if he were surprised before he smiled gently and leaned down to press their lips together.

Tony had been trying to prepare himself all night for what was to come. Many more people were going to die, both SHIELD and HYDRA. It wouldn’t be until they managed to make their way up to the communications hub that they would be able to broadcast what was going on through the entire complex. Any resistance that they encountered before then would be taken down.

He hadn’t been able to sleep with those thoughts going through his head, but now that he was standing in Steve’s arms and kissing him he felt like he would be able to get through this first and think about it later.

Steve leaned back again and ran his thumb over the bags under his eyes. “We should do something when this is over. I know that your house in Malibu is gone, but do you maybe have another place in mind where we could go?”

“I have a place on the coast in Northern California that no one knows about. It’s not as flashy as Malibu was, though.”

“I’m sure that I’ll like it anyways.” Steve leaned down and pressed a quick kiss on the corner of Tony’s mouth. “It’s time to go. All personnel would be in by now.”

The others pulled their gear together as Tony walked over to the briefcase. He opened it up and stared down at the gauntlet that was resting inside of it. Tony pressed his palm against the back of the gauntlet and watched as it opened up and wrapped itself around his forearm.

When the gauntlet was on, he wiggled his fingers to make sure that it was functioning properly before grabbing his jacket. The sleeve obviously didn’t cover up his hand, but he would be able to keep it inside of his pocket until then.

Steve waited until they were all standing in front of him before speaking to them. “You all know the plan. We infiltrate from different points. We’ll drop Hawkeye off away from the perimeter where he will find a way to access the building from the roof. Widow and Iron Man will enter through the front and Casey and I will sweep through the back. The objective is to meet up in the communications hub and with the aid of the true SHIELD agents, take down HYDRA before they get the chance to scramble together and launch those Helicarriers.”

It was a pretty solid plan, Tony thought as they all started to make their way down to Natasha’s car. Neither he nor Romanoff would be looked at with too much confusion and Barton was skilled enough to make his way through the building undetected. He was just worried about Steve and Casey.

Along with the shield, even devoid of the patriotic paint, there was no way that no one was going to recognize him. Most of SHIELD had been aware of his reawakening by the time that he had left, and if they hadn’t they must have heard when the initial search parties went out.

Tony also had no idea what kind of skill level that Casey was at, but he assumed that she was good enough to have around if Steve was trusting her enough to have her back him up in the building.

Hawkeye was dropped off near the edges of the property and Steve and Casey hid under a blanket in the back seats of Romanoff’s sports car. At first Tony thought that there was no way that they were going to be able to get passed the checkpoint without being noticed, but she had just driven up to the entrance with her car and waved at the man sitting in the booth. The security guard opened the gate on site and let them through without too much fanfare. Natasha looked over at Tony and quirked the side of her mouth before turning back to the road.

No one in the vicinity even gave them a look as the four of them exited the vehicle.

Tony had his right hand in his pocket to conceal the gauntlet and was about to follow Romanoff into the building when a hand on his bicep stopped him. He looked up at Steve in question.

“Stay safe. I’ll see you at comms?” Steve asked.

“Of course, don’t keep me waiting.”

Steve huffed under his breath. “Don’t be a smartass.”

“I’ll have you know that I take offense to that.” Tony quipped back. The conversation was eerily similar to the one they had before Tony left Steve back in New York, but this time he knew for a fact that they were going to see each other again.

They parted, with Steve and Casey moving to the back of the building as Tony and Romanoff moved to enter through the front.

They flashed their cards at security before stepping into the elevator. He thought that it was a blessing when no one else entered along with them before the doors shut.

“We’re going to drop by the locker rooms first. I’ll be able to get ahold of more weapons and we can get you some proper protection as well.” Widow said as the elevator doors opened once more and they stepped out.

Tony followed her through the hallways, making sure to wave at everyone that noticed him. It seemed that everything was going according to plan to far. Steve and Casey wouldn’t be too far behind them and Tony was sure that Barton was working as fast as he could as well.

No alarms had gone off by the time they went into the locker room and stocked up on supplies. Black Widow emptied out a locker filled with weapons, going through them to pick out the ones that she thought were most useful to her. Tony strapped on a Kevlar vest over his shirt before pulling his jacket back on over it. It made him look bulkier than normal, but it would provide him with some stoppage power.

He even accepted a handgun, for emergencies.

Unfortunately, things were bound to go wrong at one point. The moment when they were about to leave the locker room the alarm started ringing out. There was an announcement about how an armed Captain America had been spotted inside of the building along with an armed compatriot.

Tony swore under his breath as Romanoff ran out of the locker room and he had to race after her.

“The elevators will be deactivated in the event of an alarm. I hope that you kept up with your cardio, Stark!” Romanoff shouted out as she opened the door to a stairwell.

“I hate stairs.” Tony said with a grunt as he followed after her.

The communications hub would be at least half a dozen floors above them. About halfway up the stairs they encountered a group of Strike Force agents that were heading down.

They all stopped with Tony and Romanoff standing at the bottom of the stairs and the agents at the top of the stairs.

“Agent Romanoff, what are you doing? All agents have been ordered to intercept the intruders. Why is Stark here?”

Widow pulled her guns out and Tony quickly pulled his gauntlet covered as well. “Sorry boys, I’m one of those intruders.”

Tony was the first one to shoot. Hearing the repulsor tech whir and let out a high pitched sound as it discharged was music to Tony’s ears, almost as good as watching an agent slam into the wall behind him and seeing the others scramble to gather their weapons.

“Note to all Agents. Black Widow and Tony Stark have been compromised. Shoot on sight!” One of the agents shouted into his earpiece before he fell when he was shot.

As soon as all of the men were down, they made their way back up the stairs. They were able to catch most of the agents that they encountered by surprise and made it up to the communications hub without any major injuries. Tony was going to have a bruise the size of a boot on his hip, but he would live.

The communications techs were already lined up against the wall with their arms in the air and their weapons on the ground on the other side of the room with Barton standing in front of them with his bow out.

“It’s about time you two made it up here.”

“We had some company. Any idea of Rogers’ whereabouts?”

Barton shook his head. “Status unknown.”

“Shit. We can’t afford to wait any longer. Stark, you’re going to have to be the one to announce what’s going on.” Romanoff walked over towards the hub and started typing in commands.

“Me? I suck at speeches. You made a point of telling me how horrible my speeches were when you were Natalie.”

Natasha looked up when banging started up on the far door. She sent him a glare before she hurried over to cover the door.

Tony stared down at the console and pressed a few buttons to activate the comms systems throughout the entire building. “Attention, all agents. This is Tony Stark reporting to you from your very own communications hub! You’ve all probably heard the announcement about Steve Rogers showing up and me and Agent Romanoff going rogue, but that’s all wrong! SHIELD has been compromised by HYDRA. Alexander Pierce is their leader and the Strike and Insight crew are HYDRA as well. They killed Fury when he was snooping too close to their plans of using the new Helicarriers to kill anyone who stands in their way. We ask that any SHIELD agents help us take down HYDRA and stop them from trying to launch the Helicarriers. We might have been able to stop an alien army from taking over our world, but we are a Hulk and a Norse God of Thunder short and we’re going to need your help to save the world.”

“Riveting speech there, Stark.” Barton snarked from behind him.

Tony turned towards the archer where some of the SHIELD agents were gathering their weapons and getting ready to join the fight. “If you didn’t like it, you could have done it yourself, Barton.”

“You’re both pretty, boys. Now get your act together. We need to go to the secondary location.” Romanoff opened the door on which agents had been banging on only a minute before. She ran out and Hawkeye gave him a smirk before running after her. Tony sighed. More running. He was really starting to miss his suit right about now.

They made their way down the stairs again, this time not encountering any resistance. The floor that Alexander Pierce’s computer was located on was filled with agents that were fighting each other. Tony had to jump over a few bodies and dodge some attacks as they made their way over to the office.

Tony couldn’t help but grin when he spotted Steve barrel through a few agents with Casey close on his heels. There were no greetings as they all made their way to Pierce’s office.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise to see Pierce waiting for them, a scowl on his face and a black clad man with a mask and a metal arm with a red star on his bicep. Tony hadn’t been sure of what the Winter Soldier was going to look like, but he had a menacing presence.

They stopped and stood across from Pierce and the Winter Soldier.

“Did you really think that it was going to be that easy? That you could just waltz in here and do whatever it was that you wanted? I knew that I should have given out kill orders then moment that you drove off, Rogers.” Pierce spat out, pointing his finger at Steve.

“You’re too late, Pierce. We’re going to take down HYDRA and SHIELD and there’s nothing you’re going to be able to do about it.” Steve responded, stepping forward with his shield up as he eyed the Winter Soldier.

Pierce scoffed at Steve’s words. He turned towards the Winter Soldier. “Take them out.”

The Winter Soldier moved faster than anyone that Tony had seen before, and that was saying something because he had seen Romanoff fight. Steve stepped forward to intercept him, blocking his metal fist with the shield. “Tony! I’ll hold him down, go!”

Tony slipped passed them to get to the computer. The wrist of his gauntlet opened up and he pulled out a small flash drive and inserted it into the computer.

Pierce was able to pull away from the fighting with the Winter Soldier covering him and he started stalking over towards Tony. “Stark! Whatever you’re trying to do, it won’t work! You need both Alpha clearances and Fury is dead!”

“That’s where you’re wrong Pierce. You see, I’ve already had access to both Alpha clearances for days.” Tony raised his gauntlet as Pierce looked at him in surprise and fired off his repulsor. He turned back to the computer and started typing as he tried to get the system to accept the Alpha clearances without the eye scan.

“Tony, look out!” He looked up just in time to see the Winter Soldier launch himself over the desk at him. Tony was able to bring up his hand just in time to get a shot off, but the momentum that the Soldier had was too much to be blown back.

The Winter Soldier crashed down on top of him with a knife in his hands. Tony tried to get his repulsor up again to get another shot in, but the Soldier grab onto the gauntlet with his metal arm and squeezed. Tony shouted out in pain as his gauntlet collapsed in on itself and sparked as it was crushed under the pressure. He was just able to turn his head to the side to avoid the knife coming down at him, but it cut through the top of his coat and sliced the shoulder strap of his Kevlar vest.

He was kicking, trying to get the Winter Soldier off of him when the weight was suddenly pulled off of him. He groaned in protest when something fell on his face. To his surprise it was the mask that the Soldier had been wearing.

Tony rolled onto his side to look over to where the man had fallen and was getting up. He heard a sharp inhale before a single word was breathed out. “Bucky?”

The Soldier looked over at Steve. “Who the hell is Bucky?”

Romanoff took the moment of pause to launch herself onto the Winter Soldier and wrap her legs around his neck. She tried to get a wire around his neck, but he managed to get his metal hand underneath it before she could pull it tight. “Finish the download, Stark!” She grunted out as she tried to keep the Soldier from pulling her off.

Tony pushed himself back up, wincing when he placed his right hand on the ground. A quick look showed him that the gauntlet had been completely crushed. There was a trickle of blood running down his arm, most likely from where the broken metal had cut into him.

He ignored the pain as he used his left hand to finish typing the commands that would start the dumping of all SHIELD and HYDRA files onto the internet.

“The Helicarriers! They’re coming up out of the water!” Casey shouted out from where she was standing by the windows.

Barton raced over to Tony and pulled him up by his uninjured arm. “Can you tell me where the weak spots of the engines are?”

“There aren’t any weak spots on the engines, but I can point out necessary parts that are needed to the engines to run properly.”

Barton shot a glance over to the other side of the room as Steve and the Winter Soldier crashed through the wall of Pierce’s office. “Casey, Stark, let’s go. Nat and Steve can take care of themselves.”

Casey looked like she was going to protest, but Hawkeye grabbed onto her arm and pulled her along as they ran towards a side door that led to a helicopter launch pad. Tony jumped in along with the others before turning back to see if he could see Steve.

“Stark! Please tell me you can fly this thing, I need to be able to shoot.”

Tony was in no state to be flying with the way that his hand was, so he turned to Casey. “Ready for the fastest flying lesson in your life?”

He started the engines and pressed in all of the buttons as he explained to Casey how to maneuver the helicopter. The bird swayed back and forth as they rose up into the air and Tony held onto the arm of his seat to steady himself. “Casey, got us to hover over the engines. Barton, there will be a box containing miniature arc reactors within the turbine near the junction where they connect to the Helicarriers.”

With a bit of squirming Tony was able to take his jacket and the Kevlar vest off. They were just getting in the way at this point. He pulled a knife out of Barton’s thigh holster so he could try and pry the metal of the gauntlet loose so he would be able to pull his hand out.

At the same time he was shouting instructions at Casey on how best to keep the helicopter steady as they approached the engines. His hand slipped when the helicopter rocked when they started hovering over the engine and he cut into his arm. Tony hissed in pain, which was quickly drowned out by the sound of an explosion. He looked out of the window to see that one of the engines had already been destroyed and that Casey had already directed the helicopter to the next engine.

Tony could only hope that they would be able to get to all of the Helicarriers on time. He already spotted several HYDRA personnel running around on deck to try and get some anti-aircraft ordinance up and running to shoot them out of the sky.

“Watch it! We can’t stay in the same spot for too long!” He shouted out when he spotted someone run up on the Helicarrier deck with an RPG in hand.

It was almost pure luck that Barton was able to hit the second engine just before the HYDRA agent was able to shoot the rocket at them, instead losing their balance and plummeting over the edge of the Helicarrier.

Tony winced as he turned away. The person would fall down into the hangers and splat on the ground. Not a pretty thought at all.

He spotted some other small aircraft taking off and heading towards them. He was going to shout out a warning before he saw that they were starting to shoot at the people scrambling on the decks of the Helicarriers. Tony let out an elated laugh as Casey steered them away from the first falling Helicarrier and towards the next one.

Somewhere between Barton taking down his third and fourth engines, Tony was able to pry his gauntlet off. The skin was already bruised purple and blue and there was a shallow cut running along his wrist. He cut up pieces of his jacket to use as a bandage and tied it with his teeth.

They were turning to head towards the final Helicarrier when the glass of a few windows broke. Tony turned his eyes to see what was going on and was shocked to see Steve struggling with the Winter Soldier. One wrong step on the edge sent the Soldier off balance and Steve reached out to him and was pulled along.

“Steve!” Tony shouted as he watched them plummet towards the water.

“The boss will be fine!” Casey yelled at him as she turned the helicopter away.

“How do you know that?” Tony turned in his seat to see if he could spot them at all.

Casey took a moment to answer, obviously unsure herself. “Because there ain’t no way that he’s not coming out of this alive. Also, he’s a stubborn son of a bitch.”

She had a point there. The helicopter swayed once more when another craft flew up from underneath them and slammed into the bottom of the helicopter. Barton let out a shout of surprise as he tumbled over the edge.

Tony pushed himself out of his seat to try and catch him, but he was too late. He leaned over to edge of the helicopter to see that Barton was hanging upside down onto the landing skids, shooting at the aircraft that had bumped into them.

“Is he alright?” Casey asked Tony.

“He’s good! Let’s get over to the last Helicarrier so we can get this over with!” He said back as he walked back to his seat. Barton would be able to take care of himself.

That fact was proven rather quickly as Barton was able to hit the arc reactor boxes of two more engines while hanging upside down from a helicopter. The sudden loss of two engines on the same side of the Helicarrier caused it to turn sharply into the air, making it scrape along the side of the Triskelion. It broke the windows of several floors and a part of the building was starting to collapse.

“You have to get us out of here, Casey!”

“Aye aye, captain!”

The Helicopter veered off to the side as Casey steered it towards one of the banks that had been left relatively unscathed. Tony had to take the controls to land the helicopter, having to hover closely to the ground to allow Barton to jump off of the skids and get out of the way.

He let out a relieved huff as they landed on the ground. Beside him Casey was letting out shrieks of excitement as she unstrapped herself from the pilot’s seat and jumped out of the cockpit in order to join Barton on the ground.

Tony leaned against the console of the helicopter, looking over at the destruction. There was only one Helicarrier left in the air, but it would crash into the Potomac before long. Another one had crashed back into the hangers and the one that had been ripping through the side of the Triskelion had crash landed on the opposite bank.

The building was crumbling and starting to fall in on itself and Tony could only hope that almost everyone had been able to get out before it was too late and that the file transfer had been completed in time.

He sighed as he pushed himself up to get out of the helicopter as well. Tony looked over to see Romanoff walking towards them, waving her arms. At least she had been able to get out on time. He, Casey and Barton walked over to her where she had news that made Tony’s heart soar.

“I found Steve and the Winter Soldier on the banks. It looks like they pulled each other out. Steve is awake and the Soldier is out cold. We need to get them out of here as soon as possible.” She said, waiting for them to come over her before taking them over to the bank.

Casey ran over and jumped onto Steve’s back when she saw him sitting by the water. Barton wandered over to join them as Romanoff kneeled down to make sure that the Winter Soldier was still out cold.

“What are we going to do with him?” She asked.

It was Casey who answered. “We’ve already made good head way on curing a brainwashed assassin, I’m sure a second one ain’t gonna be much trouble.”

Tony shoved his left hand into his pant pocket, leaving the right one hanging next to his body as he watched them. With a frown he turned away from them and walked over to a higher part of the bank.

The sun was starting to set and it painted the scene in front of him in different shades of red, orange and pink. He had seen war before when he was in Afghanistan on that faithful day that had set him on the path of becoming Iron Man. This was something entirely different. To see the results of what could have been a war on home soil took his breath away, and not in a good way.

He doubted that this was the only base that HYDRA had settled in to. The amount of agents that had turned out to be HYDRA were a lot more than he had expected, so it was only natural to think that there was still more out there.

Knowing Steve, he would want to go around and eradicate the rest of the HYDRA remnants.

Tony had told himself earlier in the day that he would get through the fighting first and then start thinking the ramifications afterwards. He wrapped his injured arm around his waist as he looked out over the water as he remembered the way that Steve had been with Rumlow, the way that the blonde had been talking the night before with Barton and Casey. The maniac look in his eyes that Tony had seen after Steve had discovered that HYDRA was still around, in SHIELD of all places, and the out of place sheen that his eyes had held after he had come looking for Tony after he has smashed Rumlow’s skull in with his shield. The way that he hadn’t even bothered to clean Rumlow’s blood off of the shield.

His stomach sank as he thought about it. This wasn’t good. The way that Steve was acting was nothing like he remembered him to be from the stories that Howard and Aunt Peggy had told him or even the Steve that he had seen shortly after the man had woken up.

Now that he was thinking it through, he was progressively starting to fall short on reasons to explain to himself why it seemed that Steve seemed to enjoy such destruction so much. But there had to still be something good within Steve. Tony had seen it more than once over the past few days. The way that Steve treated Casey and the way that he always makes sure to let Barton know that he is being heard and that his opinion is always valid. Even the way that his eyes seemed to soften slightly when he looked at the dog that he supposedly had a strong dislike of.

Tony gulped when he realized that Steve wasn’t like that around him at all. The manner in which Steve had been talking about Tony with Barton and Casey the night before.

_You don’t gotta worry about Tony. He’ll go through with it, I’ll make sure he does._

“Tony?”

He jumped and winced when he smacked his wrist against his hipbone. Tony turned around and watched as Steve walked up towards him. His hair had been slicked back, but water was still dripping down his neck. He didn’t have his shield in his hands either and Tony allowed himself to relax slightly.

“Steve. I’m glad you’re alright. I was worried when I saw you fall.”

Steve let out a soft huff of laughter as he gestured at himself. “Seems to look like I got out just fine.”

“That’s good.” Tony tried to sound sincere and to have his smile look genuine, but it seemed that he failed when Steve’s eyes narrowed.

“Is something wrong, Tony?” He asked.

Tony suddenly recognized the look in Steve’s eyes as the same one that he had given him after Rumlow. He remembered the feeling of Steve’s hand tightening around the back of his neck as he pulled him close as well. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Steve blinked a few times in confusion before he held out his hand towards Tony. “Come on. It’s time to move on. We’ve eradicated this division of HYDRA, but there has to be more. We have to find the rest and do the same.”

“Do the same?” Tony laughed hollowly, already feeling tears stinging in his eyes. “Do you mean to leave this much destruction behind you after every HYDRA core that you find? They could be imbedded in buildings located within major cities or close to schools or within suburbia. Is this what you’re going to do even then?”

Steve’s silence and determined look was already answer enough for Tony. Tony pulled his shaking left hand out of his pocket and pressed the back of it over his mouth for a few moments before continuing.

“This isn’t the way to make the world a better place. If you go around destroying them like this, you’re no better than them. I’d be no better than the Death Merchant that I was before Afghanistan. We’d be uselessly killing innocent people.”

He was terrified of what he was saying. As of so far, his conversations with men and women who weren’t sound of mind had never gone well. What was making this one any different?

“Alright. If that’s your choice.”

Tony’s head snapped up as Steve walked over to him. He held his breath as Steve leaned in close, his eyes already starting to shut as it looked like the blonde was leaning in for a kiss.

His gut plummeted when Steve instead leaned right next to his ear and rasped out exactly the words that Tony didn’t want to hear. “Then you ain’t gonna be of any use to me anymore. I can’t really have you stoppin’ me either.”

A shot rang through the air and it took a moment for him to fell the agonizing pain in his abdomen. Tony let out a pained gasp as he covered the bullet wound with his hands and crumpled to the ground. In the distance he could hear the others running over. He spotted Black Widow attempting to run forward, but Hawkeye grabbed onto her arm and pulled her towards him so he could whisper into her ear.

His vision was blocked as Steve kneeled down next to him. The blonde frowned as he ran his fingers through his hair, trying to keep his bangs out of his eyes.

“Don’t worry. You ain’t just gonna become a statistic when you die. If you die. Either way you’ll be remembered as a hero. Imagine the headlines: Tony Stark; followin’ in his father’s footsteps to rid the free world of HYDRA! Quite the idea, ain’t it?” Steve chuckled to himself as he waved the gun in his hand around as he spoke. “But it’s alright. You are the exception of today. You won’t just become a casualty of war.”

Steve grunted as he stood up and stretched his arms over his head. After that he turned as he walked over to where the others were standing.

Tony let out a gasp as he reached out after them, his arm uselessly smacking into the ground and his fingers clawing at the ground. Blood was pouring out over the fingers of the hand that was still covering his wound. His ears rang with the sound of emergency vehicles approaching on the scene, but he couldn’t care less as he watched Steve walked away from him.

He was begging on the inside for Steve to turn back, to at least look back at him as he left him behind.

Tony let out a pained sob as his vision started to darken around the edges and he watched Steve walk away from him without a care.


End file.
